Coalition plays down climate change rift after Turbull warns on price of direct action

The political heat has moved from the Government to the Coalition, with Opposition Leader Tony Abbott brushing off concerns his Communications spokesman is criticising the party’s climate-change policies and agitating for the party’s top job.

Malcolm Turnbull, who lost the leadership of the Coalition in 2009 to Abbott after backing Labor’s failed emissions trading scheme, this week reignited talk of his leadership ambitions by criticising his own party’s climate change policies.

According to Turnbull, the Coalition’s policies – which involve supporting soil storage and paying big polluters to cut their emissions – would be pricey to implement.

He told ABC Television’s Lateline on Wednesday that a “direct action policy where the Government – where industry – was able to freely pollute, if you like, and the Government was just spending more and more taxpayers’ money to offset it, that would become a very expensive charge on the budget.”

Yesterday Turnbull added fuel to the fire by declining to play down his leadership ambitions, saying “every member of the House of Representatives has the field marshal’s baton, or the leader’s baton, in their knapsacks, so nobody would ever discount that sort of ambition completely.”

Still, Turnbull stopped short of saying that Abbott wouldn’t lead the party to the next election.

“I can’t say I have no doubt he’ll win it, although I think he’s more likely to win it than not. I’m certainly not complacent.”

Meanwhile, Abbott has said Turnbull “fully supports” the party’s climate change policies, adding their plans were “more than capable” of getting Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions down by 5% by 2020. The 5% cut is a bipartisan commitment.

“Malcolm and I talk regularly about these subjects and he fully supports the Coalition policy,” Abbott said.

He also told the Nine Network that every Member of Parliament is perfectly entitled to aspire to go higher, including Malcolm.

Peter Strong, executive director of the Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia, says both parties need to explain their policies in more detail, and how they will affect small business.

Strong fears that policies will leave small business and consumers footing the bill.

He is calling for more information on how the Coalition’s direct action policies will be funded, saying any decision that will hurt consumer spending or increase taxes will be unwelcome.

The Government this week has been urging patience as it nuts out plans for a carbon price, to be introduced in July next year. The Opposition has promised to repeal a carbon price if it wins the next election.

Climate Change Minister Greg Combet has dubbed the Coalition’s policies as “the policy you have when you don’t want to take action on climate change”, The Australian reports, and says it could cost each household $720.