Isramart : Australia May Call Early Poll If Carbon Plan Fails – Minister

Isramart news:
A senior Australian government minister said Friday that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd could call an early election if Parliament fails to pass his carbon trading program.

The government is negotiating possible changes to the program with opposition lawmakers who control the upper house Senate. It is hopeful a deal can be brokered over the weekend.

Parliament enters its final week of the year on Monday, leaving just days for the government to push through its carbon program before a long summer recess.

Business groups are calling on lawmakers to settle the issue, given uncertainty around the carbon program is hampering firms’ ability to make investment decisions and strike forward contracts, particularly in the electricity sector.

“This has been rejected once, we want to pass it the second time,” Trade Minister Simon Crean told Sky News Television.

Australia’s center-left Labor government won a majority in the lower House of Representatives in a November 2007 election. But it needs the Senate support of either the main conservative Liberal-National opposition, or all seven minor party senators to pass any new laws.

Opposition lawmakers already rejected the legislation once, in August. Under Australian electoral laws, the government can call an early election if the same piece of legislation is twice rejected by the Senate, three months’ apart.

Australia is the biggest per capita polluter in the developed world, due mainly to the fact that it uses fossil fuels, chiefly coal, for around 90% of its electricity generation.

The climate bills currently before the Senate, if passed, would see Australia introduce a market-based carbon trading scheme, similar to one already operating in Europe, in July 2011, forcing the nation’s biggest polluters to pay for their greenhouse-gas emissions.

The aim, by 2020, is to reduce Australia’s emissions by at least 5% from levels at the turn of the century.

Some conservative lawmakers still harbor deep concerns about the program and are threatening to vote it down, even if a deal is brokered by conservative party negotiators to increase compensation for industry.

That would be a break from the more usual situation where coalition party members vote as a block. Already, senators from junior coalition partner the rural-based Nationals have said they’ll block the legislation regardless of any negotiation outcomes.

The government has been negotiating with the conservative Liberal-National coalition on a series of demands ranging from agriculture to coal mining, food processing and others.

The government said Sunday it is prepared to exclude agriculture from its carbon trading program but Climate Change Minister Penny Wong wouldn’t be drawn Friday on other possible concessions.

“We want a scheme that is environmentally effective as well as economically responsible. That’s how we’ll judge all of the issues that are on the table,” she told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Conservative Senator Nick Minchin, who leads the Liberal party in the Senate, Thursday described the carbon program as an “abomination”.

His comments are at odds with Liberal-National coalition leader Malcolm Turnbull, who has staked his leadership on delivering enough conservative votes to pass the program if the coalition amendments are agreed to by the government.