Deputy PM Julia Gillard. Credit: Adam Carr

By Rich Bowden:

The Australian Government is today considering whether to call an early election after its emissions trading scheme legislation failed to pass the Senate for a second time yesterday.

Despite two Liberal senators, Sue Boyce and Judith Troeth, crossing the floor to vote with the Government on the amended bill, the Government was still five votes short in the Senate vote where it does not command a majority.

Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the Government was disappointed the Opposition did not honour its committment to pass the amended bill negotiated under its former leader Malcolm Turnbull, who was deposed by Tony Abbott in a leadership spill this week. She told reporters the Government was likely to reintroduce the legislation on February 2 in a third bid to pass the bill.

”We are doing this to give the Liberal Party one chance to work through and deal with this legislation in the national interest,” Ms Gillard said. ”We believe that over the Christmas period there is time for the calmer heads in the Liberal Party to consider this question.”

She hinted that, if the bill fails in the Senate for a third time, the option of a double dissolution election would be strongly considered by the Government.

”We will seek passage of the bill. All options are on the table as to what will happen next,” she said in Canberra.”The Prime Minister, on a number of occasions, has said it’s his intention to have the Parliament go full term. [He] has also said that he is determined to see this legislation pass the Parliament.”

”No one should underestimate the determination of the Government to have the scheme pass through Parliament,” the Sydney Morning Herald reported the Deputy Prime Minister as saying.

Party Split

The ETS debate has split the conservatives in the Liberal party against more moderate elements with conservatives emerging victorious this week though with a party that it now almost equally split on the issue of an emissions trading scheme.

New party leader Tony Abbott led a revolt against former leader Malcolm Turnbull’s policy of negotiating with the Government on an ETS and told media yesterday that, should the legislation be reintroduced in February, he saw no change in policy.

‘We will do what we can do and we will let the Government fret and sweat over what it does,” he said.

The Government is hoping a long hot summer, coupled with pressure from key industry supporters of the Liberal party who are keen to see the introduction of an ETS on favourable terms to them, will combine to increase Mr Abbott to pass the amended legislation.

However the Government has been accused of playing politics with the legislation, driving a wedge further between moderates and conservatives in the Coalition party room.

National’s Leader in the Senate, Barnaby Joyce, who led his party’s move against any form of ETS, told ABCTV:

Nationals Senate Leader Barnaby Joyce. Credit: Owen59/flickr

“What they are doing is … a political wedge mechanism,” he said yesterday.

“It might work well inside this building in Canberra but the Australian people will just get furious with you. They’ll say, `We made a decision, we’ve come to a conclusion, you’re playing a game and we are sick of it’.”

Senator Joyce challenged Labor to go to use the double dissolution trigger handed to the Government by the failure to pass the emissions trading legislation.

“Julia Gillard knows the constitutional mechanism that is before her and if she wishes to roll that dice she should,” he said.

“It’s not so much a threat, it’s a reality: at some point in time in the future there will be an election and we’ve just got to prepare for it.”

Tags: australian senate, copenhagen climate, double dissolution, ets legislation, julia Gillard, liberal party split, Tony Abbott