The Coalition are continuing their marathon climate change/leadership party room meeting after question time today. Clearly, agreement couldn’t be reached within the scheduled four hours. That’s significant in itself.
In developments so far, Andrew Robb has jumped ship, reports Bernard Keane at The Stump.
The government has made its offer on the Coalition amendments. Peter Martin has the text of Rudd’s press release. Writing in New Matilda, Ben Eltham characterises the deal thus:
Billions more taxpayer dollars will be sacrificed on the altar of making the emissions trading scheme palatable for big polluters.
It’s impossible to see this ‘bipartisan’ deal as anything other than a huge transfer from the household sector to the polluters, and one which, at least in the short term, will do nothing much to reduce emissions. The argument in favour is that it should be supported to lock in business and parts of the Coalition, in the hope that it can be improved over time. The argument against ‘pass now, improve later’ is put by Senator Christine Milne at GreensBlog.
In today’s Crikey, Bernard Keane described the CPRS as the worst ever policy process this country has seen. It’s a textbook example, as well, of how politics can completely derail the ostensible intent of a piece of legislation, except insofar as it continues to provide the government with a talking point or two on the actual issue (and that’s not much of an exception!)… So all eyes in the commentariat will now doubt be on the implications for the Liberal leadership. Ludicrous outcomes such as a Kevin Andrews ascension are probably outside the realms of likelihood, but then who knows with this mob?
The issue has certainly crystallised almost all the ructions within the Liberals and between the Nats and moderate Liberals. Continued resentment of defeat, the counter-productive relationship with the media, the tendency to tear down any leader who won’t play the right wing game in all its purity and nuttiness, self-delusion about electoral politics. It’s all there. And none of it is remotely rational in a political sense, or any other.
More to come later…
UPDATE [Ben Eltham]: Sky News is reporting that Wilson Tuckey has moved a leadership spill motion …
Update [Mark]: Tuckey’s leadership spill suggestion failed. Perhaps he shouldn’t rely on The Australian for an assessment of numbers within the Liberal party room.
Update [Mark]: The farce continues, as Coalition members get angsty over whether the meeting should adjourn for a dinner break.
Update [Mark]: I suspect what’s going on now is they’re trying to work out what spin to put on an outcome which is completely chaotic, because both sides disagree as to what happened. If Turnbull, as leader, says that the meeting has decided to accept the deal, it seems to me that all they can do if they don’t agree is to take up Kevin Andrews’ kind offer and make him leader. Or Andrew Robb. Or Tony Abbott or someone. But all the blather about legitimacy surely is just hot air, unless they’re prepared to actually dispense with Turnbull.
Update: Turnbull is giving a press conference, pointing to his strong leadership, and claiming that he’s saved jobs. The Twitter buzz might be as good as place as any to follow what’s going on.
Update: SBS makes about as much sense as anyone could out of the result of the meeting.
Update: What Turnbull should do now.
Breaking the CPRS deadlock
Almost two weeks ago, I suggested that something positive might come of The Greens’ suggestion that Ross Garnaut’s interim measure on carbon emissions should be the circuit breaker for the CPRS impasse.
In the intervening period, I’ve been surprised that so little attention has been paid to the negotiations between Senator Penny Wong and Senator Christine Milne on behalf of The Greens, which began last week. I’ve sought to emphasise that there are possibilities of Senate passage via a Liberal floor crosser (perhaps Judith Troeth, who is retiring) and Nick Xenophon. In any event, I’ve argued that there are political benefits for Labor in staking out a new position which could demonstrate the desire for immediate action, and perhaps take a different bill to a double dissolution.
Perhaps it’s inevitable that the media would ignore these developments, but I’ve also been surprised at the attitude of a number of commenters on several threads, which seems to assume that Labor’s posture is somehow frozen in stone.
So, in light of all this, I was very interested indeed to hear Bob Brown give a very articulate and well argued interview to Tony Jones on Lateline tonight where he discussed these negotiations, and revealed that he had also been talking to other non-Government Senators.