Mining billionaire and federal MP Clive Palmer has stepped up his fight with Australia’s conservative Liberal-National government saying his Palmer United Party (PUP) may not support a repeal of the carbon price laws and mining tax.
At the same time the government’s Environment Minister Greg Hunt has expressed confidence the coalition’s Direct Action climate plan will pass the upper house Senate because funding will now tied to the federal budget.
“The funds will be part of the budget papers and I doubt the budget will be blocked, unless we’re going to be forced into a constitutional issue,” Mr Hunt said during a media conference broadcast on ABC News24.
Mr Hunt warned attempts by opposing senators to block the budget could cause a constitutional crisis.
However, Mr Palmer reacted sharply and said the government’s move was “nothing short of blackmail”.
Mr Palmer responded by saying that “if the government wants to try to play smart then two can play at that game”.
“You tell them that if they do that [include the emissions reduction fund in the budget] we will immediately reconsider our position on the carbon and mining tax repeals,” Mr Palmer said during the media conference.
“If they play games like that they need to be politically punished and reconsidering our support for the carbon and mining tax repeal would be one thing we would definitely consider.”
“They are doing this really as a tactic, like little kids wanting to get their way,” he told AAP Newsagency in the Queensland state capital, Brisbane.
AAP reports that while the Liberal-National government may get funding for Direct Action through parliament, it will need the PUP senators to help repeal both the current carbon price laws and mining tax from July.
Mr Palmer said the coalition might not get that support.
“If they’re going to adopt a tactic like that we’ll have to reconsider our position when it comes to the mining tax and the carbon tax,” he said.
Mr Palmer claims Direct Action is a “token gesture”, a waste of money and a coalition “slush fund” to appease consultants and lobbyists.
He said the money allocated for the policy should be used for pensions, which the government has indicated it is looking at changing in the budget.
However, The Australian Financial Review reports senior sources say the Liberal-NAtional government is in fact considering pulling back from its plans to cut welfare payments to children of war veterans in a bid win over Mr Palmer.
While he was against direct action, Mr Palmer said PUP would support a national inquiry on climate change as a way of determining what action the government should take to deal with it.
Mr Palmer has also challenged Prime Minister Tony Abbott to hold a double dissolution election if he didn’t like the stance the PUP was taking on key issues, claiming such a poll would only enhance his party’s position.
He repeated his threat to “reconsider” support for the mining and carbon taxes unless Direct Action was presented as a separate bill that could be voted down by the Senate, rather than as part of budget appropriation bills.
Climate policy advocates say implementing only the emissions reduction fund and not the broader compliance proposal under Direct Action, which would impose “baselines” on greenhouse emissions, would leave the policy even less effective than they now assess it to be.
“There is a real threat to any target if there is no compliance mechanism controlling the significant blowout in emissions it would leave this as a policy destined for ruin,” said John Connor, the chief executive of the Climate Institute.
The Labor Party and the Australian Greens Party are already opposed to Direct Action and the repeal of the carbon price and mining tax, while other independent senators are believed to be unconvinced by the government’s policy and would probably not support it.
