Foreign Correspondence

[fuagf]

Senate kills emissions trading scheme bills
PHILLIP COOREY .. August 13, 2009

Insert: previous .. The Opposition parties want to support the 20 per cent renewable energy target, but say they
can not because the Government linked the legislation to the contentious emissions trading scheme. ... to ...

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard told Channel Nine they had been brought forward
together in the first place because of their "integrated compensation package".

"But we are in a world of Liberal obstruction because of their divisions, so we are
safeguarding our renewable energy target legislation so it can come into effect even
if the Liberal Party continues to block the carbon pollution reduction scheme," she said.

The Herald's Environment Editor, Marian Wilkinson, explains the Emissions Trading
Scheme. This video will automatically play after a 5 second delay .. inside if you get there .. lol ..

The Senate has defeated legislation to establish an emissions trading scheme, forcing the
Government to negotiate with the Opposition or persist with its bill with the threat of an early election.

Just after 11am, the Opposition, Greens, and the independents, Nick Xenophon and Steve
Fielding, voted to defeat the package of 11 bills that sought to establish a scheme from 2011 onwards.

The Greens say the Government's 2020 emissions reduction targets - between
an unconditional 5 per cent and a highly-conditional 25 per cent - are too timid.


Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull speaks to fronchbencher
Tony Abbott in Parliament today. Photo: Glen McCurtayne

The Coalition and independent senator Nick Xenophon want the Government to
consider an alternative scheme, based on a model they commissioned from Frontier Economics.

Family First's Steve Fielding is yet to be convinced human activity is causing global warming.

In the end the Senate voted 42 to 30 to reject the bills.

The Government must now wait three months before reintroducing the same legislation.

If the bills are rejected a second time, Labor will have a trigger
to dissolve both houses of Parliament and call an early election.

Insert: I'd guess forget that. Rudd has said he will go full term and too many ifs, 'butts' and cintroversy re scheme.

Before the vote, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong called it a "day of reckoning" on climate change.

"This is a reform that is long overdue, that is in the national interest, that both major
political parties said they would implement when they went to the last election," she said.

In summing up the Government's case before the vote, Senator Wong said: 'This bill may be going down today
but this is not the end. We will press forward, we will press on with this reform for as long as we have to.

'We will bring this bill back before the end of the year."

Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull said he was willing to negotiate
amendments to pass a scheme in the event the Government reintroduces the bills.

But his party room is divided and he faces a tough test ahead, even though he has majority support to negotiate.

Phillip Coorey is the Herald's Chief Political Correspondent.

- with AAP

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/global-warming/senate-kills-emissions-trading-scheme-bills-20090813-eiyc.html