Penny Wong


Coalition’s a muddle, but that doesn’t make Wong right

Penny Wong’s relentless insistence that the real question is always Mr Turnbull’s leadership is doing the government no favours in its so-far successful campaign to use climate change as a political weapon.

Emissions negotiations to begin

The ALP must negotiate with the coalition and the Greens on carbon policy before it can threaten a double-dissolution election. Get ready Malcolm Turnbull, writes Lenore Taylor.

Never mind the RET, let’s just thrash the opposition

The Government’s emissions trading bill isn’t the only climate change-related bill coming back next week: during the last Parliamentary session, the CPRS picked up a hitchhiker in the form of the bill to implement the Government’s Renewable Energy Target.

Murray-Darling: same mess it always was

In the first of a two-part series, Bernard Keane looks at just how little has changed — and how much has been spent — in the fight to save the Murray-Darling Basin.

The illustrated Wilson Tuckey

…who is he and when is he leaving?

Why won’t Wong look at bigger emissions cuts?

Why does the Government consistently refuse to even model what 40% emissions cuts would mean, something the Greens have asked for repeatedly over many months? asks Tim Hollo.

Wong’s cynical renewable energy play

The Government is happy to sacrifice its Renewable Energy Target for political expediency.

Fashions on the Hill: politics gets gussied up

The Midwinter Press Gallery Ball is Canberra’s night of nights. And as with all red-carpet events worth their salt, it’s now time for us to brutally judge the attendees on their fashion sense.

Senator Fielding, climate change scepticism and the importance of peer review

Senator Steve Fielding, while denying that he is a climate sceptic, appears to have retreated to first principles on climate change.

Time for Wong to make a tough call on ETS

“It can’t be done while supporting jobs.” Senator Wong’s comment against strengthening the ETS suggests the government thinks it can have two bob each way on this issue. It can’t, says Andrew Bartlett.

GFC killed the ETS and Wong won’t negotiate

Warren Truss can rest easy. Penny Wong isn’t serious about negotiating with the Greens and independents over the Government’s emissions trading scheme.

Mungo MacCallum: Wong and Rudd present ETS Plan B

Rudd must now be regretting he left the climate change debate to languish on the backburner for so long.

Combet fudging the carbon tax question

Listening to Combet on Radio National this morning, you could almost hear him turning the page to his Talking Points.

Ms Wong goes to Washington

Penny Wong is in the first preparatory meeting of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, writes Erwin Jackson.

Climate Change is no Republic moment

There is one fundamental difference between climate change and the Republican movement which makes a mockery of the whole attempt to draw a parallel: Urgency.

The ETS is wretched, and Wong makes it worse

Penny Wong is turning what was a political strength for the Government into a growing weakness.

The Ellis view: Kevin Rudd the Chinese lesbian

ALP wordsmith Bob Ellis appears to have outdone himself with a biting salvo at the PM’s “muscular timidity” in the latest edition of Overland magazine, writes Andrew Crook.

Keep your ETS Safe!

A handy guide

The ETS is a dog. It will never pass

The ETS will not establish incentives to reduce emissions and will not drive any transition to low-carbon industries and the jobs that will emerge from them, writes Bernard Keane.

A few points on what would make a decent CPRS

While most discussion about voluntary abatement has focused on households, the big sleeper is all the businesses whose business models will be destroyed under the present CPRS, writes Alan Pears.

Wong’s ETS is better than nothing, but not by much

A bad ETS can always be improved later, but that assumes we ever get a government prepared to ignore the rentseekers and lobbyists, writes Bernard Keane.

Milne: Nobody wants a Ferrari ETS, Minister

Minister Wong, nobody wants a Ferrari ETS! We don’t want something that is flash and fancy but gas guzzling, expensive and out of reach, writes Christine Milne.

How Wong and Rudd ate their own ETS

So let’s be clear: the Government’s rationale for amending its already-generous ETS was to ensure the profitability of big polluters, writes Bernard Keane.

We can vote down the CPRS and still save the planet

Whether or not the CPRS is passed by Parliament, the trajectory of Australia’s emissions over the next decade is likely to be determined by the international agreement that comes out of Copenhagen later this year, writes Andrew Macintosh.

Penny Wong, “High Priestess” of climate change? Yeah right.

Given Penny Wong has diligently crafted an emissions trading scheme that will do virtually nothing to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions to suggest she’s in any way fanatical about the issue is nothing short of ridiculous, writes Bernard Keane.