Since he got the top job Malcolm Turnbull has been treading extra cautiously around the Abbott old guard’s pet issues — there’ll be no sudden moves on gay marriage, coal mining or offshore detention, he has assured the likes of Eric Abetz. And despite appointing a chief scientist with some fairly radical views on renewable energy, the PM himself has been careful — thus far — to endorse the Coalition’s existing policy on climate change: the Abbott government’s (woefully inadequate) Direct Action plan.
Turnbull’s caution might be important to Coalition unity, but today’s Essential polling shows overwhelming support for action on climate change ahead of next month’s COP 21 conference in Paris.
The poll finds only 9% of voters think world leaders don’t need to take any further action to address climate change. A whopping 49% back urgent action today, and another 28% want action within the next decade.
If, come election time, Turnbull wants a mandate to introduce an effective policy mechanism to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it won’t be hard to find. At some point very soon, the strongly held views of Australian voters — especially young ones — must trump those of the Coalition’s conservative dinosaurs.
As the world champion hypocrite.. the silly Ghunt said in 1990 when he won a university prize for his own thesis..lets have “a tax to make polluters pay”
This is an Achilles’ heel for Turnbull & the Opposition should target climate change as a priority. Turnbull will be exposed as a hollow man, beholden to the coal-addicted 20th century thinkers of the Liberal Party.
Zut – clearly, the tory government can be easily trounced by appealling to climate awareness but the problem is getting Labor to do so.
Or anything else – leave the dying to bury the dead.
Nothing can be done to shift the votes of the 80% rusted ons – half & half.
The only way to the future is the remaining 20% and the next generation who are going to pay & pay & pay for the misdeeds of their elders.
AR – The Labor party already have a comprehensive set of policies to deal with climate change, including the re-introduction of a price on carbon. Most experts in climate science agree we must do that (and much more than the LNP are suggesting!).
Bill Shorten is going to the conference in Paris, and will present a far better plan for Australia then Turdbull who is captive to the climate deniers in his own party, plus the Nationals.
It is becoming crystal clear, that if people want action on climate change then they should vote for the progressive side of politics at the next election – Labor or the Greens.