Federal Government
ROBBED: Robb’s dramatic return highlights Malcolm’s problem on ETS *UPDATED LIVE
A Liberal insider writes on the showdown in the Liberal party room in Canberra on the Labor government ETS proposal:
After three hours of the Coalition’s ETS debate the list of speakers in the party has meant the debate will carry on after Question Time.
VEXNEWS can report that insiders say the room is evenly split expressing a range of views based on the now familiar interpretation of the climate change data, hatred for deep green ideologues, the impact of Wong’s ETS on trade and jobs, the reliability of renewable energy and raw pragmatism.
It appears that Turnbull and Macfarlane have had their authority very seriously undermined by Andrew Robb, the former Climate Change spokesman who took a leave of absence due to depressive illness. One insider says his dramatic intervention may be enough to sway the room to delaying any support until after the much vaunted Copenhagen Climate Change summit in December.
So much for Turnbull’s exhausted consensus.
If the party room muscled up, it would leave the Rudd Government out on a limb. Rudd and Wong would either approach the Greens and cross-benchers or wait for February. Given Fielding and Brown could not agree on anything.
Turnbull appears to be out of step with the rank and file too. Reselection rounds have illustrated to many Libs that an ETS is loathed by all expect those who will make a packet from a new derivatives market of carbon credits. A number of Lib Senators have began open skeptics towards man-made climate change and hostile to any ETS, indicating a positioning for preselection votes as well.
While some of the usual ‘lefty’ suspects spoke in favour of the ETS deal – Troeth, Humphries, Payne and Washer – some MPs with ETS exposed constituents such as Barry Haase, MP for Kalgoolie and Joanna Gash from the Illawarra area supported Turnbull’s deal when they got to their feet. Scott Morrison from the NSW Right also supported Turnbull.
A secret ballot is still a possibility, though few have spoken of it. A spill is the last resort for the ‘hard liners’ but at this stage seems unlikely. What is likely is that from this day on Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership is doomed.
UPDATE: Another patriot reports from Parliament House that supposedly lovable cuddly Liberal lefty Joe Hockey is trying to put the screws on MP’s ahead of a party room vote this afternoon. Malcolm’s enforcer is not a good look for the leadership aspirant, insiders tell VEXNEWS.
UPDATE: Another source close to the action has suggested: Tuckey did not call for a spill – he just threatened it. Given the Member for O’Connor is a tired old windbag who sucks the sauce bottle too much, he will probably still on his feet til midnight.
UPDATE: Tuckey has now threatened to call for a spill Thursday morning. This makes the whole ETS deal very precarious. Apparently the party room is still evenly split.
6.31PM UPDATE: Malcolm is keeping his cool. Speakers are polite but there is some gratuitous barracking going on. Senator Brett Mason, once Costello’s favourite banana bender, has also proven an eloquent orator on behalf of the ETS sceptics.
7.10PM UPDATE: Meeting to adjourn. Might not get a decision tonight. Will resume after dinner break. Joe Hockey continuing to muscle waverers.
7.22PM UPDATE: Malcolm Turnbull has imploded! There was a vote – our sources say – 41-33 against him yet he declared the Party Room had endorsed the deal. Uproar and even hilarity ensued. Another meeting scheduled for eight pm that could easily turn into a night of the long knives. Can you feel the drama?
7.58PM UPDATE: Our correspondent on the spot tells us there is a rising tide of fury over Malcolm Turnbull’s conduct. The anger is palpable. Malcolm Turnbull’s office has falsely represented that he has support for backing Labor’s ETS. He doesn’t. At least, not yet. Some think there will have to be a spill to resolve the crisis, unless he resigns which seems unlikely. Many MPs (not necessarily those opposed to the CPRS itself) are of the view that Turnbull has proven himself to be temperamentally unsuited to be federal leader of the Liberal Party.
Discussion
37 comments for “ROBBED: Robb’s dramatic return highlights Malcolm’s problem on ETS *UPDATED LIVE”
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Turnbull is as gone as last weeks wages….
He will be out by Christmas.
Hockey will be the man.
All the way with Mally.
They must vote against this ETS rubbish.
give Kev Andrews a go! hockey is so dripping wet lard it makes me puke!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kevin Andrews as leader don’t make me laugh!
I am sorry to see that Andrew Robb appears to have recovered from depression. I find that very depressing. I hoped this particularly nasty piece of work would be ill for some time. Was he faking illness to avoid his Shadow portfolio responsibilities. Was he afraid of getting towled up by the clear superior intelligence and moral character of Minister Wong? Follow this up Andy. I am suspicous of this sudden recovery.
I wonder why they want a secret ballot? Is it so they can support their mates in big business, without their constituents, kids and grandkids knowing they did the dirty on them?
Reports of Wilson Tuckey challenging Turnbull’s leadership.
Tuckey has just threatened a spill, meeting still going…
andrew robb is a lazy gnome
Robb was probably too depressed to know what he was saying.
Let’s not forget, this ETS is a LABOR PARTY policy. In any event, the Libs wont spit out another leader without a viable alternative.
I sincerely hope Robb follows John Brogden’s lead, but his attempt is fatal. It is the only way Andy to get rid of the ‘Black Dog’.
Is the Robb on any meds?
He would be, I feel so sorry for the Goldstein Electorate having a mentally & emotionally unstable nuff nuff, as their elected representative.
Robb has a serious illness that does not destroy intellectual judgment. Go Robb!
Yeah ok leave him alone..
Those people attacking Robb in this blog should go back under the rock they came from.
Good job Karma will get you ‘fearless’ patriots in the end.
Andrew would have more moral fibre in his little finger than you could ever imagine. Depression is a treatable illness. Lay off the man or you will get what is coming to you…in the end
Sadly the Liberal party is no longer a broad church. The party is now more like a Southern fundamentalist sect where there is only one way to get to heaven, that’s by subjugating any view other than that of the fanatical preacher and his disciples.
Apparently it’s OK to be a dry as the Gobi desert but any sign of moisture and suddenly you are some-how suspect and no longer tolerated.
No wonder so many small L libs are voting for the left wing of the Party which is headed by Kevin Rudd.
Some absolutely disgraceful comments in here..
Gutless fucks.
Congrats to Landeryou for breaking the story!!
Go Malcolm. Go. Go NOW!
the rumblings in the coalition room was infact old snoozer Bailey catching a few winks
WTF is Malcom smoking these last few days? The emails out of the CRU are adequate reason to at least defer a vote until after Copenhagen.
Rudd’s insatiable vanity is driving him on. Grow a pair, Malcolm, and apply the brakes!
I agree with the above commentators – Malcolm has to go.
Brendan, come back….. please…….PLEASE!!!!!!!
watch the overseas delegations
The tortise only makes progress when he sticks his neck out. Andrews made those comments about Muslim enclaves for a reason
Dump him. I had high hopes for Turnbull when he was elected leader, but his foolish support of this nonsensical ETS has completely destroyed his credibility in regional Australia.
As for Joe Hockey, what was previously easy to mistake as affability has been shown to be nothing but grinning idiocy. I doubt he even deserves to be on the front bench, let alone in any high ranking position.
I never thought I’d see the day that clowns like Wilson Tuckey and Barnaby Joyce actually made MORE sense, and provided MORE leadership, than the elected leaders of their respective parties. It is a shameful day for conservative politics.
The only man to come out of today with any dignity is Andrew Robb. Well done, that man.
Where is the live update? Hello? Where is it?
Are they still going for it in the party room tonight?
Medication to deal with despressive psychiatric illnesses are powerful mind altering drugs.
Sure people who need these drugs should have access to them, no doubt.
But remember they are MIND ALTERING and a man like Robb should not hold a position of power while under the grip of these drugs.
Though I do not endorse the hypocritical practice of formulating and endorsing policy which opposes that of the government whilst personally believing that the government’s policy be correct, I reckon that the politically expedient policy for Turnbull would have been to seize on the recently leaked CRU e-mails, and to have declared something like this:
“Despite Rudd’s and Wong’s absurd and scaremongering claims that the science on Anthropogenic Global Warming is settled and that all true scientists agree with the theory, the truth is that many experts are sceptical of AGW, and the recent CRU leaks demonstrate that some leading proponents of AGW have deliberately falsified data which was then used to foment warmingist fearmongering. Furthermore, they have apparently maliciously calumniated scientists who dared to disagree with their official dogma. They are proved to have subverted the peer-review process to their own ends by colluding to have colleagues and fellow travellers prevent sceptical scientists’ papers from being published in certain journals and then further castigating those heretical scientists’ conclusions as worthless because their papers had not been published in said peer-reviewed journals. Clearly the consensus claimed by the government does not actually exist.
“Science, of course, does not depend upon consensus; it is either science or it is not. Since these documents suggest that many alleged scientists have been maliciously involved in politically tinged pseudoscience rather than with real science, it behoves sensible people with the nation’s interests at heart, before rushing to heedless action, to insist on waiting for real scientific proof that any ETS will make one jot of improvement to anything other than the bank balances of vested interests.
“Accordingly, I have asked my party to oppose any ETS legislation until Mr. Rudd and Sen. Wong are able to supply some genuinely scientific proof in support of their claims. Naturally, calling anyone who questions their claims a denialist or to point to any unseasonably hot day as proof of unalterable climate change is not what we shall accept as scientific proof.
My party has endorsed my request and, even should the PM call a double dissolution out of pique and frustration, the Liberal Party would rather go to an early election than support a ruinous, economy-wrecking policy based on nothing more than environmentalists’ scaremongering.”
Mr. Turnbull had the chance, and blew it.
GET RID OF TURNBULL. I HATE!!!!! THE FACT HE IS OUR (so-called) LEADER.
Churchill was depressed and did an ok job, by most accounts. Your hate-filled comments only display your simple minded ignorance. Hit the books loser.
Andrew Robb’s last minute intervention – epic fail.
robb is a gutless wimp
Scott Morrison “from the right”. Hah! Classic! Best one I’ve heard all year. Ambition faction more like.