It seems fairly certain that Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership will end on Monday after Tony Abbott announced this morning he will challenge if Turnbull doesn’t change his position on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. While Joe Hockey could be convinced to contest, it seems that Abbott’s CPRS opposition could give him the leadership he would not be able to win in normal circumstances. Hockey is still a strong contender, but it seems bizarre that the party would switch to another pro-CPRS leader. Indeed, considering that the candidate taking the party to the election will face disaster. It may be Hockey’s best option to hold back and take over after the next election. This will be the first time that a major party will change leaders twice without going to an election. In the past, John Latham, Alexander Downer, Simon Crean and Brendan Nelson have all been replaced without facing an election, but it is becoming increasingly common, with Turnbull being the fourth Opposition Leader to be rolled without facing an election in the last fifteen years.

You have to think the chances of the CPRS passing are low, considering the challenge. Abbott made it clear this morning that he plans to change the party’s position on the CPRS if he becomes leader. While the ALP seems to be aiming for a vote this afternoon, it seems extremely unlikely that Minchin and Abetz will allow a guillotine before the Liberals can change leaders. While there are easily seven Liberal senators willing to follow Turnbull’s lead and vote for the CPRS, I doubt there would be seven willing to cross the floor to vote with the government if Abbott is leader.

So it seems likely the Liberals will lurch to the right and go to an election with senior figures openly questioning the science of climate change, with the party deeply divided between moderates and conservatives. It is interesting to consider Turnbull’s recent behaviour from a long-term perspective. Looking at a short-term perspective of Turnbull trying to hold on to his leadership until the election, it seems madness to stake your leadership defending the federal government’s climate policies and refusing to back down under such fierce internal opposition. On the other hand, Turnbull has been continually hampered by conservatives as he has tried to modernise his party. If he is resigned to being defeated for the leadership, there is a certain logic in taking a stand in favour of the party acting on climate change and fighting to the bitter end. Once the Liberals under Abbott go to the next election and are decimated, Turnbull’s warnings and political positioning will be looked on much more favourably.

It’s possible Turnbull could hang around on the backbench to make a comeback later on. He has clearly attempted to model his leadership on David Cameron in the UK. However, the British Conservatives had spent eight years in opposition when Cameron took over, while the Australian Liberals are yet to accept they will need to modernise and change to get ahead. If Turnbull is willing to wait around for the party to turn back to him after a thumping defeat, he could become leader again with a much stronger position. That being said, you’d have to think a man like Malcolm Turnbull wouldn’t have the patience to wait around on the back bench for years in order to get another chance. It seems much more plausible he will leave Parliament either at or before the next election.

It’s fascinating to examine which individual Liberals have come down on the pro-CPRS or anti-CPRS side. Using the list made by Tim Andrews of which Liberals spoke during the long party room meeting on Tuesday, and adding in others who have been clearly identified with one side or the other (such as Turnbull loyalists or shadow ministers who resigned yesterday), you come up with the following numbers:

• Pro – 41
• Anti – 35
• Unknown – 9

When you break it down by state you don’t get massive divisions, with the split running through all states. NSW is dominated by pro-CPRS MPs, while Tasmania is dominated by anti-CPRS Senators and WA has a slim majority against the CPRS. Victoria, Queensland and South Australia are split down the middle. A slim majority of House of Representatives MPs are in favour of the CPRS, while a majority of Senators (but not a large one) oppose the CPRS. While the anti-CPRS forces have equal numbers amongst MPs in safe seats and relatively safe seats, 60% of MPs with a margin of less than 5% supported Turnbull’s position. This does indicate a tendency for those Liberals more at risk of electoral defeat (marginal seat MPs) to support doing a deal and avoiding a double dissolution while Senators with little risk of electoral defeat are more likely to take a stand. If you map out the electorates of pro- and anti-CPRS MPs, you find little geographical correlation. Despite fears of Nationals winning seats off the Liberals on the back of a CPRS vote, many rural Liberal MPs support the CPRS while many urban MPs take an opposing position.

In the last few days, some pretty ridiculous predictions have been made. The most ridiculous has been the idea that the Liberals could split into separate parties. That sort of thing just does not happen in Australia’s modern party system. Throughout this entire debate, while some Liberals are climate skeptics, the argument for the centre ground of the party has been a conflict between two different pragmatisms. Some are worried about how supporting a CPRS would hurt them amongst Liberal Party members and their base support, who are increasingly skeptical of climate change. Others, such as Turnbull, support a CPRS to avoid the party being painted as climate skeptics and to avoid a double dissolution on climate change which they believe would devastate the party. Indeed, Turnbull has explicitly made such pragmatic arguments in last night’s press conference and his interview this morning on AM.

If that doesn’t convince you that the Liberals will stay together, it’s probably worthwhile to play out how it would work. If the Liberals were to split, with either Turnbull or Abbott leaving a split in one direction or the other, you would have incredible chaos as Liberal MPs picked sides. As I previously mentioned, there is little relationship between the two sides and any sort of clear geographical, demographic or ideological divide in terms of their electorates. Fights would begin over the control of the party’s resources as the two sides would be picking candidates to run against each other. What would happen to state Liberals like Barry O’Farrell? The idea is not going to happen as long as Australia retains a single-member system.

Likewise, the possibility of the Nationals making gains off the Liberals at an election following the passage of the CPRS seems very unlikely. Despite their clear position against the CPRS in recent days, the party is seriously on the decline. The fact that many rural Liberals support Turnbull’s position suggests the threat isn’t particularly serious.

One other issue which the last few days has raised is the possibility of a double dissolution. Assuming Abbott gets his way and the CPRS is blocked, the ALP will have a double dissolution trigger. I previously was convinced that Rudd would not call a DD, partly because his party is not ready and partly because there would not be a huge benefit for him. But after a week when the Liberals have exposed their ugliest side, finishing off by electing a far more right-wing politician as leader, it’s plausible we could see the ALP kick into gear for a March/April election. While they are not ready, they would have four months to speed up preselections and get ready in the field. Considering the state of the Liberal Party, no leader would do well in such an election. In addition, the crisis atmosphere of the previous week would help shield the ALP from accusations of calling an unnecessary early election. It will be easy for them to argue that the state of the Liberal Party has frustrated important CPRS legislation, and necessitated a double dissolution.

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.

In terms of the consideration of the legislation in November, we have to consider the positions of both major parties. At the moment Malcolm Turnbull’s strategy appears to be to avoid a double dissolution trigger at any cost, which would suggest that they will do all they can to agree in November. There is still a strong chance, however, that this strategy could change. The party room could force a ‘no CPRS’ position on Turnbull, or the leadership could even shift to a more hard-line figure. In addition, you would have to think Turnbull would hope to achieve some minor policy concessions from the government in exchange for support. If the government refuses to budge at all, would Turnbull still acquiesce? Could his leadership survive such a backdown?

On the other side, the question is how far the Government is willing to move in order to get the CPRS passed. While I’m sure they would love to pass the CPRS, it is surely a secondary consideration to their political interest in damaging Malcolm Turnbull. In the case where Turnbull blocks a CPRS the second time, I tend to think Rudd’s greater credibility on climate change will allow him to paint Turnbull as backward and use it to beat him over the head. Plus I’m sure the ALP would love to have a DD trigger, whether they plan to use it or not. In the case that they wish to call a double dissolution, Rudd would need to politically justify his calling an early election. It’s much more justifiable to argue the need for clear climate policy, rather than calling an election over the Ruddbank or other mundane legislation.

The other perspective of interest is those of the Greens and those environment groups who oppose the CPRS for being too weak and ‘locking in failure’. The Greens have followed up the ‘no’ vote with a letter to Kevin Rudd calling for new negotiations on a higher target and a tighter scheme. The problem is that there simply are not the votes in the Senate for the Labor Party and the Greens to do a deal on a stronger climate policy than the current CPRS, even if Labor showed any willingness to strengthen its position.

As long Steven Fielding remains in the Senate, there is no way the Rudd government could craft legislation to satisfy both Fielding and the Greens. No Liberal opposition is going to produce a compromise that would strengthen the CPRS, and there is seemingly no Coalition senator willing to cross the floor and give a Labor-Greens-Xenophon coalition the numbers it would need to pass something stronger.

The Greens position is good, and is important in the framing of the debate. The Greens need to convince the public, particularly those concerned about climate change who are swinging between Labor and the Greens, that they are doing the right thing, and that the CPRS is so bad that it is better to have nothing.

However, all of that campaigning will come to naught in the current Senate. The numbers simply aren’t there. There are only two options to achieve any sort of climate policy that improves on the CPRS: wait until a new Senate comes into office in July 2011, which would probably see the defeat of Steven Fielding and the Greens taking the balance of power, or somehow push the government into a double dissolution, which would see a similar result much sooner.

Unless the climate movement is willing to  just sit around and wait 23 months for any sort of action, the only option is to do all it can to push for a double dissolution. How do they do that? I don’t know. But it would be useful to see some environment groups come out and clearly call on Rudd to call an early election on the issue. The Greens can’t do that yet. They need to be seen to be cooperative and trying to create a functional Senate. But environment groups could be doing that now, and particularly as we head into November.

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?

First of all, the crosstabs:

40% of Labor voters think the Government should keep the target set, while 37% of Labor voters think the Government should strengthen the scheme by increasing the target. Coalition voters are more likely to support the introduction of the emissions trading scheme than think that the scheme should be abandoned or delayed (48% v 40%).

Coalition voters were more likely to think the Government should abandon the emissions trading scheme (22%). 72% of Green voters think the Government should strengthen the scheme by increasing the target.

Respondents aged 18 – 24 were more likely to think the Government should strengthen the emissions trading scheme by setting a higher reduction target (48%) while respondents aged 50 years and over were more likely to think the Government should abandon the scheme (19%).

There’s a lot of interesting details in this data. It appears that the argument of the Greens and the environment movement – that the CPRS is not enough – has cut through and has the support of about one-third of Australians. This group of people would be considered to be the ALP’s left flank, as well as the Greens’ base. You wouldn’t think many of those voters cast a preference for the Coalition in 2007. If you assume that, say, 90% of those who want a stronger target preference the ALP, you’re talking about just over 50% of the ALP’s voters (including Greens who preferenced the ALP) want them to strengthen their target. This group is much larger than the current Greens’ voter base, and suggests that the Greens could substantially increase their base if they can attack the ALP for being weak on climate change at the next election, and must be worrying for Lindsay Tanner and Tanya Plibersek.

Another third basically support the government’s position. You have to consider this to be bad news for the government’s sales technique, until you consider the Liberal/National position. If you assume that most of those pushing for the government to be stronger are ALP/Greens voters, a solid proportion of those supporting the government must be people who voted Liberal in 2007, and the Coalition’s alternating positions of delaying or abandoning the scheme comes in at a dismal 19%.

So what is needed for the government to pass the CPRS? It all adds up to 39. You need 39 votes in the Senate for a majority. As it stands, the Coalition holds 37, the ALP 32, the Greens 5, as well as Xenophon and Fielding. Assuming no Coalition senators breaking the party line, there are only two scenarios where the government can get the numbers:

• ALP + Coalition (=69)
• ALP + Greens + Xenophon + Fielding (=39)

So, if you were Kevin Rudd, Malcolm Turnbull, Bob Brown, Nick Xenophon or Steven Fielding, what do you want out of the CPRS debate and legislation?

Kevin Rudd

• Pass the legislation (so that the government is seen as effective and able to implement its agenda).
• Paint the Coalition as dominated by climate skeptics and continue to burden them with Howard’s failure to act.
• Present the Government as acting strongly on climate change.
• Present the CPRS as not economically destructive in the current economic crisis.
• Present the Government as leading the agenda on climate change.

Malcolm Turnbull

• Calm the climate skeptics in the Liberals and Nationals.
• Maintain his hold on the leadership against all comers.
• Shake the image of the Coalition as climate skeptics.
• Embarass the government.

Bob Brown

• Manage to achieve a stronger target or block a CPRS until after the next election.
• Paint the ALP as weak on climate change and captured by the fossil fuel lobby, thus painting the Greens as the only people willing to do what is necessary on climate change.
• Shake the image of the Greens as unreasonable and unwilling to work with the government and replace it with an image of the Greens as a responsible party to hold the balance of power in the Senate.

Nick Xenophon

• Achieve what he can for South Australia

Steven Fielding

• Try to give impression of wanting action on climate change.
• Defeating things that will raise costs (eg. fuel costs, electricity costs, etc) on “families”.

Of course, these objectives are largely contradictory, and make it interesting when trying to determine what might be the path forward on this issue.

So now it’s over to you: 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?