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CANBERRA, Oct 1 – Australia’s conservative opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull on Thursday threatened to quit unless opposition lawmakers end divisions over climate policy and avert a possible snap election on carbon-trade laws.
Turnbull, struggling in opinion polls, wants to negotiate changes to the Labor government’s planned carbon laws when they return to parliament in November in order to head off a potential early election, which Prime Minister Kevin Rudd would easily win.
But the junior opposition National Party and several members of Turnbull’s Liberal Party publicly oppose the carbon trade plan and any deal with the government, undermining Turnbull’s position.
“I will not lead a party that is not as committed to an effective action on climate change as I am,” Turnbull told reporters on Thursday, increasing pressure on rebel lawmakers to support his emissions trading policy.
Turnbull, a wealthy former merchant banker, was environment minister in the previous conservative government, but he has struggled to impose order in his party since he became opposition leader in September 2008.
The carbon-trade laws have been defeated once in parliament’s upper-house Senate and Rudd would have a trigger for a snap poll if the laws are voted down a second time after November 16.
Rudd has talked down the chances of an early election, saying he would prefer to serve his full three-year term with elections due in late 2010, but opinion polls show Rudd on track to win a second term with an increased majority.
The government has set an October 19 deadline for the opposition to finalise amendments to the carbon trade laws, which will return to the Senate in November.
Big business is also urging the opposition to negotiate changes to the carbon-trade plans, to better protect export industries and Australia’s coal and electricity sectors.
Australia, the world’s biggest coal exporter, accounts for 1.5 percent of global emissions, but is among the highest per capita emitters due to a reliance on coal for about 80 percent of electricity.
In August, Turnbull set out a broad alternative plan for carbon trading, which he said would be cheaper and greener, with a guarantee to cut overall emissions by 10 percent of 2000 levels by 2020.
The government carbon-trade plan promises emissions cuts of at least five percent, but up to 25 percent if other countries agree to take firm action at global climate talks in Copenhagen in December.
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