So now there’s another Coalition position on the Government’s ETS bill: Nick Minchin told 2UE this morning that the bill is unlikely to be passed by the Senate because of all the amendments that the Coalition, Greens and independents will want the Senate to consider. Minchin ruled out “filibustering” on the bill but he made it clear the Coalition would not support the bill coming on for a vote before Parliament rises for summer on 26 November.
Incidentally, why’s Parliament knocking off a full month before Christmas? Ask Anthony Albanese, Manager of Government Business. He schedules things round here. But Minchin promised an “extensive committee stage” on the legislation.
Let’s go back to basics here, just for a moment. Climate change is being used by the Government to wedge the Opposition mercilessly, in far more savage a fashion than John Howard ever managed to do to Labor on refugees or national security.
There’s a lot of focus on a double dissolution election but why would the Government want an election when the Opposition has reduced itself to a rabble over the issue of an ETS? Why not sit back and watch the Coalition destroy itself over an issue it is plainly sorely divided on?
Minchin — and Wilson Tuckey, who is backing the tactic too — is in effect saying that the Coalition will allow the Government to go on wedging it for three months longer, well into an election year.
Delaying the vote until next year just means the same shenanigans that have been going on for a week and longer will continue over summer — another long, hot, fiery summer, most likely — continually reinforcing in voters’ minds how uncommitted to addressing climate change the Coalition is, and how deeply divided they are.
Remember, this issue won’t go away if the Liberals change leaders. The Liberals almost seem on the verge of flying apart. Minchin is the first shadow Cabinet minister to break ranks. Who’ll be next? It wouldn’t be at all surprising if Malcolm Turnbull suddenly called a press conference and announced he was jack of the whole damn lot of them and was leaving. But that legislation will still be coming on whether Tony Abbott, or Joe Hockey, or Rowan Ramsey leads them. The dilemma, the wedge, the painful choice will still be there, waiting. Turnbull is the one offering the least painful resolution.
In any event, for a double dissolution election, legislation merely has to “fail to pass”. As Senate Clerk Harry Evans has pointed out, the meaning of “fail to pass” is unclear, and the only point at which the issue could be decided in a court would be after the relevant legislation has been passed by a joint sitting, following an election. The Prime Minister’s advice to the Governor-General that a bill has “failed to pass” and the requirements of s.57 of the Constitution have been met can’t be challenged.
You’d imagine Rudd wouldn’t bother. The Opposition is tearing itself apart. Why interrupt them?
I guess one possible reason to interrupt them would be to get on with solving the problem, rather than politicking the issue to within an inch of our lives.
Hang on while I hold me breath waiting for this to eventuate.
Action such as that suggested by Senator Minchin and Wilson Tuckey also serves the purpose of reinforcing in the electorate’s mind another of the tropes that Labor likes to hang around the neck of the Coalition, that is, that they are ‘mean and tricky’. Also, that they are morphing into that dangerous beast that we do not wish to import to our shores, the American Republican Party. The Liberals must realise that what works as smart politics in the US is seen as distasteful in the extreme in the much more politically decorous confines of Australian politics.
Yes, there is no law against getting on with solving the problem by offering a range of incentives for scientists and interested businesses to start thinking outside of fossil fuels. The present approach in my view is merely designed to extract maximum money out of fossil fuels for the next 50 years before moving to something else probably just as bad like uranium, a scarily unstable element. The alternative would be to seriously address free energy which nobody except “the people” like because it is free or… free enough..If the governement were sincere, they would be making available research funding for a wide range of energy solutions – not just solar and wind, but also wave, geothermal, zero-point electro magnetic and any other wondrous concept out there. I dont think it will take 50 years to get some of these things over the line.
So as I continue to say..ETS is a hoax – a UN tax on the people of the world.
“Delaying the vote until next year just means the same shenanigans…”
No, it doesn’t just mean that. Next year means post-Copenhagen. Delaying a vote until then is at least defensible. But after that all bets are off. The range of options still open will be considerably narrower, and standing in the way of legislation at that point is not a place you’d want to be, politically or in any other sense.
Oh. This is actually what I’ve been trying to say for a long time now.
Note to self: read what the next few Crikey articles say before commenting on the first one.