Turnbull hands Rudd ETS early election trigger — Chk Chk Boom

IMHO, everything that has gone wrong with the Liberal party has to do with their inability to maintain the bipartisan approach to a carbon cap and trade system. Turnbull used to be the one who seemed to be across the issues, but what a flip-flop, opportunistic waverer he turned out to be. How's that holding Rudd accountable?

Now we got a damn election to get through. Liberals are going to get hit hard for this.

THE Rudd Government's emissions trading scheme is headed for defeat as a result of a Senate stand-off, handing Labor a trigger for an early, double dissolution election.

The scheme is set to be voted down by the Senate next month, despite the Opposition Leader, Malcolm Turnbull, announcing yesterday the Coalition wanted to delay a vote until early next year - after the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen.

The Coalition would then demand that the scheme be radically remodelled along the lines of the scheme proposed by the United States President, Barack Obama, which is now before Congress and is far more generous to heavy polluters.

Mr Turnbull said that Labor's scheme should meanwhile be subject to another inquiry, this time by the Productivity Commission. But the Government flatly rejected the call and said it would put its scheme to a vote in June as scheduled.

A double dissolution can only take place if a bill is rejected twice by the Senate, three months apart.

If the bill is defeated or deferred next month, it will count as the first rejection. Labor could put the bill up again in October, and if it were again defeated or deferred, the Government would have a trigger for an election.

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, accused Mr Turnbull of a failure of leadership by constantly putting off a decision on whether to placate right-wing Liberals and the National Party .

"What we have here is a series of excuses to underpin the fact that the Leader of the Opposition has not had the courage to take on the climate change sceptics in his party," Mr Rudd said. The same attitude had cost Brendan Nelson the leadership of the Liberal Party, he said.

Too right. How ironic.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy