{"id":313090,"date":"2017-06-16T14:26:41","date_gmt":"2017-06-16T13:26:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/energy-policy-impasse-highlights-australian-political-disarray\/"},"modified":"2017-06-16T14:26:41","modified_gmt":"2017-06-16T13:26:41","slug":"energy-policy-impasse-highlights-australian-political-disarray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/energy-policy-impasse-highlights-australian-political-disarray\/","title":{"rendered":"Energy policy impasse highlights Australian political disarray"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>Energy policy impasse highlights Australian political disarray<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    Mike Head<br \/>\n    <br \/>16 June 2017<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>Two tension-filled events in Canberra this week underscored the fragility of the Australian government. It is caught in a perfect storm of global and domestic crises.<\/p>\n<p>Deepening social discontent toward the entire political establishment is being compounded by the international uncertainty produced by the ferocious infighting in Washington over Donald Trump\u2019s presidency.<\/p>\n<p>First, on Tuesday, there was what the media termed a \u201cmini revolt\u201d by Liberal-National Coalition members of parliament against the Turnbull government\u2019s support for the introduction of a Clean Energy Target, supposedly to reduce carbon emissions in coming decades.<\/p>\n<p>After two stormy party room meetings, which lasted for hours, it became clear that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull\u2019s leadership would again be in doubt if his government pushed ahead with such a scheme, which would threaten the interests of the coal mining industry. The second meeting generated foul-mouthed shouting matches featuring Turnbull\u2019s ousted predecessor Tony Abbott, a trenchant opponent of any emissions-reduction proposal.<\/p>\n<p>Abbott\u2019s aggressive interjections in the meeting were meant to send a message that he could exploit the conflict to topple Turnbull. In 2009, Abbott won sufficient support to oust Turnbull as Liberal Party leader after he supported the then Labor government\u2019s plan for a carbon trading scheme.<\/p>\n<p>Over the past year, Turnbull sought to break the decade-long impasse over energy policy by commissioning a report by the country\u2019s Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel. The outcome was a recommendation that the government legislate a target that might eventually phase out coal-fired electricity generation. For years, the financial&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2017\/06\/16\/aust-j16.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Energy policy impasse highlights Australian political disarray By Mike Head 16 June 2017 Two tension-filled events in Canberra this week underscored the fragility of the Australian government. It is caught in a perfect storm of global and domestic crises. Deepening social discontent toward the entire political establishment is being compounded by the international uncertainty [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-313090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313090\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}