Kevin Rudd will give Tony Abbott one last chance to vote for an emissions trading scheme or face a possible snap election in March/April.
Acting Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has announced that the Government will recommit its defeated emissions trading scheme bills on February, 2, the first sitting day of 2010.
``It will come to the Parliament in February, we will seek passage of the bill, all options are on the table as to what will happen next,’’ she said.
The bills went down yesterday after a marathon 50 hour Senate debate. Two Liberal senators crossed the floor but the eleven bills still were defeated 33 to 41.
Labor’s strategy now, while not immediately obvious, is cleverly crafted to trap the freshly minted Mr Abbott between the devil and the deep blue sea.
It works like this. Having had its ETS bills knocked off yesterday, the Government now has a double-dissolution election trigger in its back pocket. Importantly however, that trigger, applies to the original unamended scheme - the one presented and defeated in August. That is, it relates to the ETS before it was ``improved’’ with $7 billion worth of sweeteners for big polluters, coalminers, and electricity generators through Malcolm Turnbull’s efforts.
The bill that is to be re-presented first thing next year however, will be the Liberal-agreed (and then rejected) ETS - that is, ETS MkII - which includes the Turnbull improvements. Herein lies the trap for Mr Abbott who incidentally, has already ruled out any new taxes and rejected an ETS as a valid response to climate change.
Towards the end of a long hot summer, after power blackouts and bushfires, and with voters’ lawns dead, he will be faced with a choice between passing the Liberal improved ETS or being dragged to a snap climate change poll where, in likelihood the original ETS, sans billions in compensation for industry, would be backed by voters and passed in a joint sitting of the houses after the election.
At that point Liberals will be under intense pressure from those industry sectors, key Liberal supporters, to pass the amended / improved version.
From the Government’s point of view, the strategy has other advantages too.
First, it gives it a story to tell to get it over Christmas, ie: that it still wants its scheme passed. Second, realistically, a double-D election cannot simply be called out of the ether. Rather, it needs a crisis point, a moment of high drama. Rejection of the ETS bill in the second week of February would certainly give it that.
Finally, the time-table gives the Government more time to hone its own arguments for an ETS - a job it has not done well enough yet - and importantly, to gauge Mr Abbott’s relationship with voters. If it turns out Mr Abbott is doing well and is making gains, all bets will be off until much later in the year - say August.
But if the new and inexperienced leader has made a few mistakes or simply failed to animate middle Australia, expect Kevin Rudd to pull that trigger as early as mid-February. In some ways, he’ll have little choice.
Afterall, its either the great moral challenge of our times or it isn’t.
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