Malcolm Turnbull looks set to lose his leadership in a push to pass the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, causing a deeper split in the party than any seen in a long time. The split has been driven deeply through the party in all states, in the city and the country, and a mix of Senators and marginal seat MPs.
So the federal government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme was voted down today, with all non-government senators voting to block it.
It appears clear that this bill will return later this year, with two weeks of sitting in late November presenting an opportunity. In order to become a double dissolution trigger, there needs to be a gap of three months between the bill being defeated. The first possible date is November 16, with Parliament sitting for the two weeks following, with the last sitting day of the year being November 26.
First of all, it’s worth pointing out that any double dissolution triggered by the blocking of the CPRS literally cannot happen this year. The minimum length of a federal election campaign is 33 days. If the CPRS is blocked in the first of those two November sitting weeks, the earliest possible election day if a DD is called immediately would be Boxing Day. It’s safe to say that this would not be possible, and the earliest possible election would probably be in February, with March being much more likely. This would avoid the possible problem of a DD being called before the NSW and Queensland redistributions conclude in December. Of course, a double dissolution could be called on another bill. This doesn’t even get into all the reasons the Rudd government may not want to use any trigger it gains.
Via Possum, we find that Essential Research released a poll yesterday including questions about various issues, and one in particular has piked my interest.
Thinking about the Government’s proposed emissions trading scheme (called the carbon pollution reduction scheme) to address climate change by which the Government aims to reduce emissions by 5-15% by 2020 – do you think the Government should:
With this fascinating poll now out, I thought it would be a good time to plot out the lay of the land on the CPRS, which must be the biggest piece of legislation to go into the Senate in 2009. I’ll run through what I believe are the objectives during the CPRS debate for each of the players, as well as the state of the numbers in the Senate and what that means for the issue of climate change.
Then I’m gonna leave it open to you to give your thoughts on what are the consequences of this three-dimensional chess match. A stronger target? A weaker target? No CPRS? A delayed CPRS? A double dissolution election? Malcolm Turnbull being rolled by Peter Costello? Joe Hockey? Bronwyn Bishop?
