Malcolm Turnbull Spells Out the Climate Challenge

A cross post from Global Voices: Australia: Climate Change Election a Step Closer

Even before the Copenhagen Climate Change conference the Australian Opposition parties had dumped their support for a Cap and Trade scheme and their leader Malcolm Turnbull. Last week new Liberal party leader and global warming sceptic Tony Abbott released an alternative carbon emissions plan.

Meanwhile Kevin Rudd’s government has reintroduced its Emissions Trading Scheme to the House of Representatives where Turnbull crossed the floor to vote against his own party. Last year the ETS was blocked twice by the Senate after the Opposition dumped a negotiated deal.

Turnbull's full speech to parliament is a must read. There's a link in the GV post.

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Abbott v Turnbull: Ignorance Trumps Arrogance

The title should say it all but my words of wisdom will have to wait to tomorrow:

Ignorance Trumps Arrogance! Shame, Liberals shame!

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Liberal Party Sinks into Low Farce

If/when Tony Abbott wins the Liberal leadership, we'll be facing the real enemy at last after 2 years of phoney war. My very first 10 second YouTube video seems a touch relevant.



Except that for the tongue in cheek 'Next Liberal Prime Minister of Australia' is unlikely to apply to any of these pretenders. Unless Turnbull does a Lazarus after the shellacking that the climate dunces are about to bring their Party.

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Liberal Party High Farce Over Climate Change

I'd like to disassociate myself, from Andrew Robb's actions yesterday over the Emissions Trading Scheme, as a constituent and voter in his electorate of Goldstein.

Someone else can apologise for the Victorian Coalition Senators. We are paying for the essentially conservative nature of the Senate. It and the Liberal party, nay Coalition, are looking more like Paul Keating's "unrepresentative swill" each day.

When Labor hits the crisis or cyclical bump that puts us back into opposition, Malcolm Turnbull is the kind of Coalition leader that we would want. Imagine Australia under Kevin Andrews or Tony Abbott.

Now it's on to Copenhagen, Senate willing.

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Australia’s Climate Countdown to Copenhagen

With just over three weeks till key climate talks in Copenhagen, there is little optimism that a binding agreement will be reached.

In Australia, Kevin Rudd’s Labor government has positioned itself uncomfortably in the middle of the national debate. Many of its supporters feel let down by what they see as weak 5 – 25 percent carbon emission cut targets and an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) that rewards big polluters. Yet Big Business, especially the energy sector, is arguing for more concessions.

Meanwhile a small but vocal and influential media minority continue to question global warming and the role of greenhouse gases. For some commentators, it’s all part of a conspiracy to advance global government.

Party Politics

The politics are messy to say the least. Negotiations are taking place with the Liberal Party opposition over amendments to the ETS legislation, which was originally defeated in the Senate in August. Their coalition partners, the National Party, are implacably opposed to the bill.

Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull is struggling to unite his own Liberal parliamentarians, a difficult task considering the party claims a significant number of climate sceptics and deniers in their ranks. His proposed amendments to the ETS bill are supposed to be about “jobs, jobs, jobs,” but he really wants to see some kind of ETS for two main reasons.

Firstly he accepts the science and has a personal commitment to fighting global warming. Secondly he fears a rout at a climate change election. Some of his own leadership team such as Senator Nick Minchin are considering having a bet each way: support the amendments and vote against the amended bill. The Nationals intend doing both.

The unknown element in the government’s compromise strategy to pass the legislation is much how further they are prepared to water down their scheme. In doing so they risk completely alienating many of their voters.

The Greens have been excluded from real talks because of their unwavering commitment to 40 percent emissions cuts. Even if a deal could be hammered out with them it is unlikely to get the support of the two independents in the Senate.

PM Kevin Rudd is using the negotiations to keep several balls in the air:

Re-election

A three-year electoral cycle means continuous campaigning. Cynics argue that his tactics are more concerned with short-term political advantage than long-term planning.

The Hostile Senate

The Kyoto Protocol finishes in 2012. Its replacement is supposed to hammered out at COP15. To have a real voice there, Rudd wants to establish some concrete climate change credentials through legislation but the hostile Senate stands in the way where the Greens and two independents hold the balance of power.

One solution is a double dissolution election if the ETS bill is rejected a second time. The bill could then be passed by a joint sitting of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Current opinion polls suggest that Labor would win well however, the election might be closer than predicted. There is the potential for the climate spoilers to use the basest tactics such as appeals to fear, ignorance and the tried and true hip-pocket nerve. In addition early elections have misfired in recent history. An even more hostile Senate could well result, even if the government is re-elected.

The Planet

Kevin Rudd and the Labor Party are committed to climate action. To have any impact on the future of the planet the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme needs to have both popular support and some guts, such as targets of 25 – 40 percent or 350 ppm.

The Economy

Jobs and economic growth are key Rudd priorities. Moreover, his own party is committed to protecting the coal industry and its unionised workforce. Clean coal research has received generous support.

The Environmental Lobbies

Australian Environmental groups have been divided in their response to the government’s target range increase to 25 percent in the event of a global agreement. The Australian Conservation Foundation’s latest Progress Report, Climate Change – the road to Copenhagen, is generally positive over the move. However Greenpeace Australia has a very different view stating in its own report Rudd’s weak targets undermine progress at UN that: “Unless countries like Australia put stronger targets on the table, it is difficult to see how we are going to get anything other than empty rhetoric from Copenhagen.”

The International Political Climate

The international scene is even more troubled. Barack Obama’s attempt to get cap and trade legislation is just one of a list of challenges along with health reform, the economy, Afghanistan and Iraq. The recent Barcelona talks and G20 meeting were inconclusive and the vexed question of how to finance developing countries is still unresolved.

Kevin Rudd has been asked to be one of the friends of the chairman, Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen at Copenhagen. Like many Australian PMs before him, he likes to think that he is punching above his weight on the world stage. He is expected to use the current APEC meeting in Singapore to lobby for an agreement in Copenhagen. A recent parliamentary report into the effects of climate change on coastal Australia and a government report Climate Change Risks to Australia’s Coast underline what is at stake.

* Climate Change is a soup of acronyms:

COP Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC)

CPRS Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme

ETS Emissions Trading Scheme

IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

* For more background, these links may be useful:

Linkages: Introduction to the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol

Seven steps to becoming an UNFCCC expert

The Road to Copenhagen Simon Talley

tck tck tck Global Campaign for Climate Action

(This post appeared first at theangle.org)

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Turnbull Discovers Reaganomics

When you are a besieged Opposition leader, launch a new policy. However, it didn't work for Simon Crean and it won't take the torch off Malcolm Turnbull this week.

Putting Reaganomics into practice was something that Ronald never quite managed himself. It sounds like the squirming trio at Turnbull's press conference today are going to try. Some not-so-original ideas were:

• Stop waste and duplication in government spending
• Reduce government spending as a percentage of GDP
• Increase growth through spending on infrastructure, small business and innovation
• Independent scrutiny of public finances

Presumably Joe Hockey and Helen Coonan will have to come up with some concrete proposals as there were none on the horizon this morning, just cheesy grins all round.

The new spending will, of course, replace the stimulus infrastructure package and other government programs for innovation and small business. Need to check the thesaurus for synonyms for 'stimulus'.

Malcolm's media release reads not only like a lift from Reagan's election manifesto but could be a cut and paste from Kevin Rudd's 2007 campaign launch.

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Malcolm Turnbull's Ozcar Own Goal

Senator Eric Abez has excused his own and his leader's abysmal lack of judgment over the fake Ozcar email by suggesting that occasionally the opposition bowls a "no ball":

The Opposition does have to go in hard, does have to keep a government accountable and from time to time, given that we're playing the Ashes at the moment, when the Opposition runs in, every now and then they do bowl a no ball and that is unfortunate.
PM calls on Turnbull to resign over OzCar
The World Today ABC 5 August 2009

The better sporting metaphor would have been an own goal as the pair certainly posted a major score for the Rudd government. If Malcolm won't resign, then Eric should fall on his stumps before he runs out his captain.

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Progressive Conservatism: Arise Sir Malcolm

One of the goals of the The Progressive Conservatism Project is:

developing bold approaches to tackling poverty and inequality in all its forms: poverty of income, assets, aspiration, and networks.

It seems that Kiwi conservatives know what the new way means. Back to the future:

Eminent New Zealanders have overwhelmingly embraced the chance to reclaim the titles of knight and dame under a change in the country's honours system.

Of the 85 people singled out for distinguished work since the titles were abolished by the former Labour government in 2000, 72 have accepted the honours since they were reinstated by the current National government in March.
New Zealanders reclaim imperial honours

Malcolm Turnbull is a lateral thinker. Maybe he'll look across the Tasman for innovative solutions to the Federal deficit such as selling Imperial Honours.

Phillip Bond, Director of the PC Project, shared his ideas with Geraldine Doogue last week:

And what I want to do is try to create a genuine conservatism, the conservatism of the 1920s and 1930s, that was advocated in the UK by Noel Skelton, who coined the term 'property-owning democracy', and that in itself was influenced by the great liberal catholic thinkers, Chesterton and Bellock. And this notion of a property-owning democracy, creates a genuine third way, not an illusory third way, between a capitalism that dispossesses people for the benefits of a small elite, and state socialism that dispossesses everybody for the benefits of the state.
Phillip Blond: Progressive Conservatism

Time to bring back the limited franchise for elections, just for the property-owners of course.

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Turnbull echoes discredited US Republicans

It is interesting that the discredited US Republicans and Australia Liberals are singing from the same sheet music. Obama and Rudd's stimulus packages are too large and should use tax cuts as their main weapon.

As John Amato argues at the Huffington Post:

Obama was elected to bring change to the economy, not to debate the merits of tax cuts all over again. We had that discussion for 18 months and Obama won. Tax cuts lost. Why is the media ignoring that fact?
Why aren't there hundreds of economists on my TV explaining the stimulus package?

Too large. Should be replaced by tax cuts. This mantra echoes in Australian conservative rhetoric:

Defying the widespread support for the package from economists and business groups, Coalition MPs met early yesterday and backed Mr Turnbull's argument that, despite the political risk, the package was too big and risked passing massive debts to future taxpayers.

Instead, he proposed a smaller package of up to $20billion based on bringing forward tax cuts already planned for July this year and next year.
Battle lines drawn on $42bn plan

It seems that John Howard was not the last to take his lead from Republican politicians.

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Tweet Minister

Lindsay Tanner has been blogging about enhancing government accountability through use of the Web. He also blogs regularly on the BusinessDay Blogs of The Age. It might be time to get an Australian version of Britain's Tweetminster to push this process along a bit:

TweetMinster is a public service that makes it easier to connect the public with Members of Parliament using Twitter. We want constituents to find their MPs (or invite them to use Twitter if they're not already doing so) and through encouraging participation and open conversations, promote better and more transparent communication between voters and elected representatives.

or Germany's abgeordnetenwatch:

With abgeordnetenwatch.de voters, citizens, anybody can talk to their MP's on line at any time. All they have to do is give their name and their e-mail address. You log on. You give your zip code. The voting precinct is found by the computer. You see a profile of your MP and fire away your question.

There are OZ sites with some of their features but we have a long way to go to establish real communication. GetUp has Project Democracy where we can watch our Senators but it's one way.

Apparently Malcolm Turnbull was one of the first of the tall timber to start twittering. His latest: "Just visited Bondi Public to see their new garden plans. On 380 into city now."

Kevin Rudd twitters as part of his new website:" Penny Wong and Jenny Macklin have just recorded a new vpod about the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme at www.kevinpm.com.au." Of course none of this is interactive. At least you can ask questions of the British and German pollies.

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Ken Henry postscript

When denying the "suspicions" of the opposition about the budget forecasts, Treasury Secretary Ken Henry made two attacks on their current tactics. Firstly, their undermining of the public service was "unhelpful". In Yes Minister terms that equates to the strongest criticism.

His second point, though not directly mentioning his Liberal Party critics, touched on the irresponsibility of white-anting financial institutions such as the Treasury and the Reserve Bank at a time of financial crisis.

Fundamentally, what is driving weaker economic outcomes globally at the moment is fractured confidence. So anything that can be done to help restore confidence in real growth in the strength of the economy right at the moment, is valuable.

We can talk ourselves into worse outcomes; of course we can. People do; it wouldn't be the first time. But we don't have to...
Henry slams Opposition's manipulation claims

The key people talking down our financial institutions in Australia are the Federal Opposition. Malcolm Turnbull must know the implications of this.

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Turnbull's pit-bulls off the leash

It is fascinating to see Malcolm Turnbull's emerging style as leader of the Federal Opposition. As fairly progressive on social issues he is defining his leadership through economics as we would expect from a former merchant banker. However, it is the less the content of his policies on the financial crisis than the tactics he is using to gain some traction in the debate which makes him appear to be stakinga claim to pit-bull status. His endorsement of government responses to the crisis, followed by immediate criticism of the detail is what we want from a credible, functioning opposition.

The bitter attack on individuals and organisations who are expected to act independently of government spin is defining the new Liberal guard. Malcolm and his frontline spokespersons, Andrew Robb, Julie Bishop and Helen Coonan are on dangersous grounds at present. By questioning not only the integrity of both the Federal Treasury and the Reserve Bank but also of key people such as the Treasury Secretary Ken Henry, their tactics are undermining those institutions at a critical time.

Public confidence in the economy is at rock bottom. Turnbull seems willing to destroy any public trust in Treasury and the Reserve Bank for short term political point scoring.

They had better back up their accusations with some tangible evidence. Ken Henry's address to the National Press Club in an hour's time is impeccable timing.

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Arise Lord Nelson

Living costs more important than republic: Nelson

Is Brendan Nelson angling for royal honours like every Liberal's hero and mascot Sir Robert Menzies, perhaps as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports? All the Liberal Party needs is another monarchist as leader. Maybe it's a way of achieving some product differentiation from Malcolm Turnbull.

Nelson hasn't quite mastered the Rudd salute yet either.

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Turnbull offside with Republican Movement

Malcolm Turnbull is no longer in favour with his old pro-Republic mates. In a press release on Wednesday 30 January, Mike Keating, the Chair of the Australian Republican Movement, criticised his comments that the republic is off the agenda until QE2 has departed:

This theory means we won’t debate the issue until we have King Charles of Australia. By that time the absurdity of our current constitutional arrangements will be even starker. No one doubts that Queen Elizabeth is a popular and admired figure but the republic is something Australians should determine on our terms.

Mr Turnbull is entitled to his opinion... but on this issue he is wrong.

Rather than putting the republic in the too-hard basket, Mr Turnbull should be taking the opportunity to forge consensus around the issue in the changed political environment. The Australian Republican Movement would be happy to assist him in this task...

It will be interesting to see if Malcolm will support any moves towards dumping the monarchy during the queen's lifetime. Perhaps he has learnt the lesson of alienating some of his party room colleagues after his stolen generation"sorry" statement before the leadership ballot. The recent Governor General debate has certainly awakened interest in the republic if online chatter is any indication.

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Malcolm down with EI?

Thanks to Crikey's blogwatch the Australian Elections blog has alerted us to someone who might be held responsible for the quarantine fiasco known as Equine Influenza. Randwick Racecourse is next to Malcolm Turnbull's Wentworth electorate. Moore Park and nearby areas are supposed to have a high number of racing industry workers. The blog claimed the traditional Liberal vote of 55% around this area has evaporated.

If only it were true! A quick check of the 2004 election results showed that the polling places nearest to Randwick such as Clovelly, Randwick North and Paddington South favoured the ALP with 55% Two Party Preferred. The racecourse itself is in Peter Garrett's Kingford Smith seat. Anyway, Turnbull could still catch flu if there is any significant swing amongst racing industry connections.

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