Environment
THE ELEVEN: Will eleven Liberal Senators break their party’s heart?
Malcolm Turnbull’s current crash-through or crash strategy on the CPRS legislation – and his leadership with it – is to attempt to force through highly complex bills at the earliest possible opportunity.
He hopes that by getting the legislation passed that the issue so horribly dividing the party’s leadership from its base will suddenly become academic.
It’s an incredibly zany and high-risk approach. It is positively Lathamesque in its madness and boldness.
And yet there is a chance it will work. The bills are due to go to the Senate this afternoon.
And that chance rests in the hands of eleven Liberal party Senators who are believed likely to vote with the government (or with their Leader depending on your point of view) on their CPRS/ETS legislation.
Retiring lefty Liberal Senator Judith Troeth is one, WA Senator Richard Colbeck is another, others include Minchin nemesis SA Senator Simon Birmingham, NSW Senators Marise Payne and Helen Coonan, supposedly conservative NSW Senators Fierravanti-Wells and Bill Heffernan, Victorians Senators Helen Kroger and Michael Ronaldson and Queensland Senators Russell Trood and the dripping wet George Brandis.
The government needs only seven of them to pass the bills.
Once the legislation is passed it will enshrine a system of credits and an ETS that will be probably be incapable of being repealed without incredible cost.
That’s why passing the bills now suits both Turnbull and Rudd, for different reasons.
Rarely is Club Fed as dramatic as this.
UPDATE: Helen Kroger and Fierravanti-Wells will not be voting for the legislation today.
UPDATE: Nor will one of VEXNEWS’ favourites, the colourful Senator Bill Heffernan. They are dropping like flies.
UPDATE: With the Senate adjourning at 3.45pm it looks like the legislation won’t be passed, in this form, possibly ever.
Discussion
23 comments for “THE ELEVEN: Will eleven Liberal Senators break their party’s heart?”
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I think Sen George Brandis from QLD is going to vote for it also!
Well spotted Joe, duly added.
Latham.
Whatever else you might say about him, he would never have signed up for the ETS BS. How gutless are the current crop of ALP MPs and Senators, that not one will speak out against this con job?
Byron – as ever – makes a good point.
There’s at least as many sceptics/agnostics/questioners/denialilists in Labor’s ranks as the Libs, it’s just they know what will happen to them if they speak up.
Byron, you must be on drugs. How could yo say that Latham would not have signed up to ETS after his dim witted forestry announcement in Tasmania.
Joe Hockey is on Twitter asking for everyone’s feedback on the ETS. He might be the one to sway the others. If you don’t like the ETS, call his Canberra office on 02 6277 4854 and say so.
I can add to the list:
Senators
Boyce (02 6277 3188)
Johnston (02 6277 3222)
Humphries (02 6277 3446)
Got them from Minchin’s office this morning.
Viva le revolution! Comon libs, vote this rubbish down. Pity the labor party is so stalinist that its own sceptics cant cross the floor on this issue without losing their endorsements
It is such a shame in this democracy many of our politicians care only for the party and not for Australia and its people. How cold they support an issue that could potentially destroy Australia and want to rush though ill considered legislation to suit the ego of top party officials.
Ronaldson definately not voting for it. He’ll back Turnbull to the end (the honourable thing to do), but he won’t ever rat.
I believe Trood is now also voting against the Bill.
I am still sitting on the fence on the ETS however I think population control is the issue that the MP’s should address but they won’t – baby bonus !!
As far as sea level rising are concerned; well the frozen Arctic melted to a fair degree in their last summer and did the sea rise – no. We have had more rain and flooding world wide but is that a bad think given this liquid water is now available to water the increasing masses.
Besides population, fuel and water are the essentials (like in the Army, plus ammo). In Melbourne if the sea rises 8 inches (20cm) so what, Middle park beach will still be OK, and if worse comes to worse a huge shipping loch could be built at the heads with shipping channel contained by levels to take the ships to the Port of Melbourne.
ETS solved, now I am off for another coffee at Armstrong St, shops, in trendy Middle Park
I don’t get why Brandis will vote on this, I know he’s a small l liberal but he’s always seemed to be one of the small government sort.
He’s a smart guy I would’ve thought he’d thought through the ETS better.
You can add Guy Barnett to the list. Barnett hates Abetz’s guts (and vice versa)and Turnbull has promised him promotion. Would sell his own mother to further career. Btw, colbeck is from Tassie not WA.
***how could yo say that Latham would not have signed up to ETS after his dim witted forestry announcement in Tasmania***
Because he’s an opportunist and contrarian. They’re easy to manage if you push the right buttons.
It will be the END of Ronaldson if he does, and any other smartie who turns on the will of the party. Dont do it Rono.
The CPRS is a tax, pure and simple.
It will permanently increase the size of government as it will be offset by compensation payments to all the ginger groups that will suffer from its implementation and have the political clout to get taxpayer dollars directed into their pockets. Such ludicrous transfer payments are just built in funding costs that can never be withdrawn and they will keep taxes high forever. Any member of the Liberal Party who supports such a new tax is either acting out of political cowardice or lack of commitment to the principles of small government – whichever it is, they deserve to be disendorsed and excoriated into eternity. It is bad enough losing principles to try to stay in government but losing principles to stay in opposition has to be the most ludicrous of all!
Climate change is real. It happens constantly in a natural ecosystem as complex as our planet. There is insufficient data to conclude that the current climatic conditions are primarily caused by anthrogenic factors. The relatively rapid increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases is measurable and hence is blamed. However, we do not know what things we are not measuring are contributing to the effect and how significant the effect is going to be. I am of the view that some areas of the world will benefit and some will do badly. Obviously Kiribati is going to have problems with sea level rises but its total population is barely six months of Melbourne’s population increase and could easily be absorbed elsewhere as I am sure it was centuries ago when the island was last under water during the Rennaisance era global warming that allowed Greenland to grow vegetables. Apart from rising sea levels, there is not enough scientific modelling to show whether global warming will be a global catastrophe or blessing as rain patterns and arable lands shift. Perhaps Lake Eyre will be full of water but the Murray dry up and Australia’s arable land move into west Queensland and out of Victoria and the Riverina. Bad for Victoria, not so bad for Queensland. Who knows? Human lifetimes are such small measurements on a global scale.
In case you haven’t noticed, the climate changes continuously – sunshine, rain, cloudy, windy and Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, and yes, it get cold as well as hot.
Back in 1881 there was a really very firm belief that the Arctic/Antarctic ice was meltinmg, and the seas were rising to flood everyone. Anyone noticed it happening today ?
Think back and you will find many sets of clear evidence that something is certain, then all of a sudden it isn’t any more.
Grow up, all you climate chabge fools. You have been conned to allow the KRudd’s of this world to tax you to death, so they can gain on the world stage.
The Greens Party is voting with Minchin.
Are either embarassed?
true science works on proof of an experiment, which has been to show the same results three times.(something like that)WHERE IS THE PROOF.so keep asking where is the PROOF.ther aint none…
true science works on proof of an experiment, which has been to show the same results three times.(something like that)WHERE IS THE PROOF.so keep asking where is the PROOF.there aint none…
Embarassed? I don’t even know how to spell the word. I also struggle with that other curly one, ‘loyaltie’.