Rudd positioned to win the environmental vote

The Australian Prime Minister's worst dreams were realised when his months of hoping that Labor's national conference would be a showcase of all the worst aspects of the ALP came to naught on the weekend.

He had been hoping they would implode and had been pressing Labor's super-sensitive spot on uranium, the exposed raw nerve of an unfinished, three-decade-long factional argument.

clipped from www.smh.com.au IT'S been a bit of a sad weekend for John Howard. For months he has been pressing Labor's super-sensitive spot on uranium, the exposed raw nerve of an unfinished, three-decade-long factional argument. The ALP resolved the uranium question calmly and rationally. There was an emphasis on practical approaches to policy. The debate was real but the outcome was cooked. Rudd's uranium proposal was carried, narrowly but decisively. Rudd's low-interest environmental loans, similarly, are good policy. They help households make progress towards water conservation. They help families take direct action to curtail carbon emissions. And they do it at minimal cost to the taxpayer. Next week Peter Costello will produce the national budget, and in the next month or so Howard will produce the Government's new policy on global warming. They will need to be good.

Global Warning Climate Change