ETS moves one step closer
By Crystal JaMon Nov 16 23:37:14 EST 2009
Mon Nov 16 12:37:14 UTC 2009
FED: ETS moves one step closer
CANBERRA, Nov 16 AAP - Australia has moved one step closer to having an emissions trading scheme after draft laws passed the lower house, as the government hinted there was more room to move on the coalition's wishlist of changes.
As widely expected, the controversial carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS) passed the lower house on Monday after the government used its numbers to push it through.
With the legislation now moving to the Senate, where the real debate begins, the most important negotiations continue to be played out behind closed doors.
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong and the coalition's negotiator, Ian Macfarlane, remain locked in negotiations even as the legislation moves through the parliament.
It's going down to the wire, with meetings planned for this week and not ruled out for the next.
But the odds of a positive outcome appear to have firmed.
Senator Wong is not ruling out additional concessions after conceding to a major coalition request on the weekend to remove agriculture from the scheme.
"The government always knew going into these negotiations, we were going to have to move on some issues," Senator Wong told Fairfax media on Monday.
"(The opposition's) got a whole range of other things they want.
"They're not going to get everything they want ... (but) we're going to have to move on a range of things."
Good faith negotiations were overshadowed by the political warfare playing out in parliament, with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and various frontbenchers taking the coalition to task on climate change.
They used Monday's question time to tell the coalition to "take responsibility", to "play its part", pointing the finger yet again at sceptics within its ranks.
Mr Rudd said the agriculture concession came about because the government "recognised some of the internal political realities within the coalition".
Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull said, unlike Mr Rudd, he was not going to have a running commentary on the talks but said they are going well.
He said he remained committed to the good faith negotiations.
Meanwhile, Senator Wong was implored to take greater steps in renewable energies by a group of emergency services workers on a 6,000km not-so-fun run from Cooktown to Adelaide.
The firefighters, police officers and SES workers, who are trying to raise awareness, arrived in Canberra to coincide, co-incidentally, with the ETS being debated in the lower house.
Melbourne firefighter Dan Condon, 32, running with his 10-week-old daughter, Bondi, said it was obvious to emergency service workers - at the frontlines - how climate change was affecting Australia.
"It's been a hot, hard run," he told Senator Wong after completing the day's 20km run in Canberra's 34 degree heat.
"But nowhere as hot and hard as conditions we faced on Black Saturday.
"It's pretty obvious to us that the climate's changing."
Senator Wong said that's why the government was pushing hard on emissions trading.
"We are asking people to do something hard in the hope that it will do something for our country, for our children."
Debate on whether the CPRS can achieve that starts in the Senate on Tuesday.
