Australian Federal Election?

[August1991]

TONY Abbott has secured the Liberal leadership in a knife edge three way tussle but the fate of Labor's emissions trading scheme is still not clear.

Mr Abbott secured the leadership in a final vote against Mr Turnbull by 42 votes to 41 votes. In the final vote one Liberal MP voted informally.

A clear majority of Liberal MPs also voted 55 to 29 to block Labor’s Emissions Trading Scheme in the Senate this year.

However, it remains unclear whether up to 8 Liberal senators will cross the floor in defiance of this decision and support Labor’s legislation.

The Australian

This is very interesting.

Labor Party PM Kevin Rudd proposed a carbon trading scheme (ETS) to reduce emissions. The Liberal opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull approved the government iniative but then a large number of Liberal caucus members broke away. Now, a leadership vote has been taken and Tony Abbott, opposed to ETS, has become Liberal leader. If the ETS proposal is defeated in the Senate, it may provoke an election.

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The international significance here is that politicians watch this kind of trend closely. A federal election in Australia will be a direct democratic test of CO2 emissions control. I suspect many politicians are testing the wind to see whether this climategate email story has any legs or not.

TONY Abbott has promised a fight on climate change after rolling Malcolm Turnbull to take over the Liberal leadership.

Mr Abbott, Mr Turnbull and Joe Hockey contested a three-way spill at a special partyroom meeting in Parliament this morning. Mr Abbott won by a single vote, 42-41.

He said he was humbled but exhilarated by the win. "We are gearing up for the fight of our lives," he said at his first press conference as leader, adding that he was not frightened to fight an election against Kevin Rudd on climate change.

Link Edited December 1, 2009 by August1991

[Riverwind]

The international significance here is that politicians watch this kind of trend closely. A federal election in Australia will be a direct democratic test of CO2 emissions control. I suspect many politicians are testing the wind to see whether this climategate email story has any legs or not.

Here is some background from when the revolted started.

On Friday, 12 Liberal members of parliament resigned their frontbench positions rather than be forced into a party line vote for ETS. That is quite a statement. The MP’s are hearing from their constituents in large numbers. From ABC news in Australia, this snippet:

“The phone lines have been in meltdown with people saying that the Liberal Party would not be doing its job as an Opposition simply to pass this thing without the scrutiny that people calling my office think it demands,” he [MP Tony Abbott] said

Several MPs have indeed mentioned the emails in their party room speeches, and your correspondents miss the way MPs actually pick up things.

...

Many MPs have been scared to challenge a “consensus”, fearing they may not just be outgunned but simply wrong. The emails give some extra confidence. I doubt more than a handful at best would not know of them, and no sceptic would not be emboldened by them.

In all this, however, many other factors are at play, including an assessment of the merits of the emissions trading bill, the wisdom of passing it now, the terrible leadership of Malcolm Turnbull and more.

[August1991]

Riverwind, to put further context here and from what I can gather, Tony Abbott is the Stockwell Day of Australian politics. It appears that people want ETS to stop but they don't want Abbott as PM.