UPDATE: Australia Opposition Leader Would Consider New Leadership
Vote
By Rachel Pannett, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
CANBERRA -(Dow Jones)- Australia's opposition leader, Malcolm Turnbull, said
Friday he would consider another vote over leadership of the Liberal Party.
Asked if he will still be leading the party this time next week, Turnbull told
Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio, "I believe so. But the party will make that
decision. I've always said the leadership of the party is in the hands of the
party room."
The comments come as senior party member Tony Abbott said he could challenge
for the Liberal Party leadership at a party room meeting on Monday.
Uncertainty over Turnbull's ongoing leadership of the party is threatening to
derail the passage of a government plan to cap Australia's greenhouse gas
emissions, currently being debated in the upper house Senate.
The center-left Labor government won a majority in the lower house of
representatives in a 2007 election but it needs the support of at least seven
opposition lawmakers in the Senate to pass any new laws.
Turnbull promised to rally support to pass the carbon trading program after
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd agreed Tuesday to boost compensation to industry.
But that pledge sparked a revolt among the conservative branch of the Liberal
Party, with up to a dozen Liberals resigning or planning to step down from
shadow cabinet positions so that they can vote against the carbon program,
including Abbott.
Turnbull said Friday he is still confident that a "substantial number" of his
opposition Liberal party Senators will back the government's carbon program.
"This is not a game. We are talking about the future of our children and their
children. We are talking about the future of our planet. We are talking about
whether we, the Liberal party, want to be a credible, progressive political
movement of the 21st century," Turnbull said.
The disquiet toward climate policy among the most conservative of Liberal
lawmakers is at odds with the views of most Australians, and with a growing
political acceptance worldwide of the need to address man-made climate change,
Turnbull said.
"The people who have sought to tear me down do not even believe in the
policies we took to the last election. They basically regard John Howard as
being too green," he said, referring to the former prime minister, whose
conservative Liberal-National coalition government led Australia from 1996 to
2007.
On Thursday, China said it planned to cut its carbon emissions per unit of
gross domestic product by 40% to 45% by 2020 from 2005 levels.
China's pledge followed the announcement Wednesday that U.S. President Barack
Obama will attend global climate talks in Copenhagen in December and is
promising the U.S. will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by about 17% below
2005 levels by 2020, and 83% by 2050.
The announcements from China and the U.S. are close to what the International
Energy Association, the industrialized world's energy watchdog, recommended the
two countries should do to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2
degrees Celsius and causing dangerous climate change.
Australia, while accounting for only about 1.5% of global emissions, is the
biggest per-capita polluter in the developed world because it uses fossil fuels,
chiefly coal, for around 90% of its electricity generation.
The Australian government plan, if passed, would see the country introduce in
July 2011 a market-based carbon-trading program similar to one operating in
Europe since 2005, forcing the biggest local polluters to pay for their
greenhouse-gas emissions. The aim, by 2020, is to reduce Australia's emissions
by at least 5% from levels at the turn of the century.
The Liberals spent weeks locked in negotiations with the government over its
carbon program, finally agreeing a further A$7 billion in compensation for
industry, including loan guarantees and other assistance for coal miners,
electricity generators, liquefied natural gas projects and others.
Ian Macfarlane, the Liberal party's climate policy negotiator, said Turnbull
still has the support of the majority of his party.
The government wants a vote to take place on the climate bills by 0445 GMT but
the Senate has so far debated only a handful of the hundreds of amendments
agreed with opposition negotiators.
Parliament had been due to end sitting for the year Thursday before breaking
for a recess until February. The session was extended until at least Monday to
give lawmakers extra time to debate the amendments.
-By Rachel Pannett, Dow Jones Newswires; 61-2-6208-0901; rachel.pannett@
dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
11-26-091818ET
Copyright (c) 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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