Nationals find Liberal allies on ETS

From The World Today, ABC Radio

ELEANOR HALL: Federal National Party MPs have issued a stern warning to their Coalition partners in the Liberal Party not to take them from granted.

The Coalition is preparing to negotiate with the Government over the emissions trading scheme but the Nationals don't want any bill to be passed.

They say a vote for the Government's scheme would be a breach of trust with regional Australia.

But chief political correspondent Lyndal Curtis reports that the Coalition may be more unified on the issue than it appears.

LYNDAL CURTIS: The former Nationals leader John Anderson isn't pulling any punches warning in a newspaper column that if the Liberal Party votes for the emissions trading scheme without the support of regional Australia and the party he used to lead, it would be an historic breach of trust with regional Australians and would so damage the Coalition contract that it might never be mended.

It's a position taken by current Nationals as well such as New South Wales Senator Fiona Nash.

FIONA NASH: We certainly think there needs to be give and take within the Coalition. The issue of the ETS is probably the most important issue for regional Australia that we have seen for decades. And it's actually not just regional Australia; it's all Australians this is going to affect. And we're simply not going to stand by and watch regional Australia get belted by what is effectively just a new tax with no benefit for the environment.

Now if we are in a coalition where the coalition partners believe that we should walk away from seven million regional Australians and not stand up for them, well then obviously we've got some thinking to do.

LYNDAL CURTIS: So what are the possibilities for future action if you split with the Liberals on the ETS?

FIONA NASH: Well those sort of things we'll have to decide at the time. What we are really focused on at the Nationals though is making sure we get the right outcome for the regions. And we believe that anybody who is supporting this ETS in any party is walking away from regional Australia.

LYNDAL CURTIS: Do you think it's a problem with the leadership of the Liberal Party, that they are taking you for granted? Or is it a more widespread view in the Liberal Party?

FIONA NASH: Well we would expect that the leadership of any coalition would be accommodating and would work with the coalition partner.

LYNDAL CURTIS: And that's not happening?

FIONA NASH: Ah, it certainly could happen to a greater degree.

LYNDAL CURTIS: Liberal frontbencher Christopher Pyne has told Sky News the Nationals' position is bizarre.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: We know the National Party are no longer at the table. They have made that absolutely clear. That's a decision for them. The National Party is not the Liberal Party. We are a coalition. We are not one party and that's a matter for them.

LYNDAL CURTIS: While the Opposition doesn't want a vote before Copenhagen it is pursuing negotiations with the Government because the Government is determined to make the vote happen in November.

The Opposition is developing amendments to the bill based on nine principles it announced earlier this year.

It's believed the Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull does want to find an agreement to get the legislation through and take it off the table as a potential double dissolution election trigger and make the question one of whether the scheme works rather than whether it exists at all.

But the Nationals aren't the only ones in the Coalition who don't want any vote this year. A significant number of Liberals don't either.

Queensland Liberal Senator Ian Macdonald can't see a vote happening this year.

IAN MACDONALD: I just have this view from long observation that at the end of the day the Coalition will be united and resolved on an approach to take which will be to a very significant degree guided by what happens in Copenhagen.

LYNDAL CURTIS: So do you think there are any amendments that Malcolm Turnbull and those who will be negotiating with him can, anything that they can do to improve the bill that would make it acceptable to pass it before Copenhagen?

IAN MACDONALD: Well I don't think anyone wants that to happen.

LYNDAL CURTIS: So you don't think that anyone would want the bill, in the Coalition would want the bill to pass this year?

IAN MACDONALD: I don't think anyone thinks that that is in the best interests of Australia. I have the greatest of confidence in Malcolm Turnbull and his ability to achieve a result which everyone will go along with. I am very confident of that.

I doubt that it's going to be possible to resolve the amendments prior to Copenhagen. Quite frankly I think it lacks common sense to even think that that might be possible.

LYNDAL CURTIS: Indeed he doesn't think that the time will allow the vote to happen. He says he has a thousand questions he wants to ask during the debate on the legislation and he's sure his colleagues do too.

IAN MACDONALD: I think there will be a lot of people with a lot of questions and that we will require answers to them. Now...

LYNDAL CURTIS: And that doesn't leave time for a vote this year?

IAN MACDONALD: Well I mean it would be on the program as the Government has currently arranged it and there is no suggestion that there would be any change to a program that the Government has had on the desk for, what 12 months now.

I just can't see that there will be time.

LYNDAL CURTIS: Time, he thinks, will be on the Coalition's side.

ELEANOR HALL: Lyndal Curtis in Canberra.

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