Labor’s Climate Change Minister Mark Butler has released data illustrating how a large number of companies are likely to be paying penalties under the Coalition’s Direct Action scheme.  These companies include Origin Energy, Rio Tinto, BHP, OneSteel, Qantas,...

The Climate Change Authority is expected to recommend the emissions reduction target be increased, arguing that the reduced cost of international carbon permits would mean the target could be raised with minimal impact on businesses, according to The Australian Financial Review.

In a report due to be released in early October, the federal government's climate change adv...

Will the Liberals' decision to give preferences to Labor put an end to the Greens' chances of winning seats at this election? Tim Colebatch in the Age (15/8) argues that Adam Bandt still has a reasonable chance of retaining his seat of Melbourne and that the Greens could hold their own, or even improve their position in the Senate. 

He explains this as follows:

... if Liberal voters direct preferences as they did in the 2010 state election – the last time the Liberals told their supporters t...

Ben Eltham in the New Matilda:

The man who will become the chair of the Coalition's proposed business advisory council, Maurice Newman, is perhaps the exemplar of this [climate science denialism] line of thinking. Newman, a wealthy former business executive who once chaired the Australian Stock Exchange, is a well-known climate sceptic. Last year he penned an op-ed in The Australian (where else?) in which he claimed that “we have seen the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change discredited...

Greg Combet at Press Council lunch:

"Carbon pricing is here to stay,'' said Minister for Climate Change Greg Combet today in defiance of Coalition claims Labor should bow to an election mandate. Mr Combet said if Tony Abbott were elected Prime Minister "he cannot and will not repeal the carbon price''. "Labor will remain committed to it,'' he told the National Press Club in Canberra. "Tackling climate change has been in our platform for over two decades, and we will fight for what we believe i...

Just as shadow climate change minister Greg Hunt starts to reassure you, someone else from the Coalition makes a statement that makes yo...

Melbourne climate group Lighter Footprints has contacted Bill Shorten and he has written back reassuring the group that the speculation about the ALP backing away from the carbon price, if under pressure from the Coalitions after the election, is unfounded.

Read more from Business Spectator below:

It took nearly two weeks, but Bill Shorten on Thursday finally put to rest rumours on both sides of parliament that he was trying to build support for a Labor backflip on carbon pricing.

The speculat...

Anthony Green, well-known election analyst, lists Batman as Labor's safest seat with a margin of 24.8%. However, he notes that "the margins for Batman and Grayndler are shown with a two-party preferred [Labor/Liberal] margin despite the Greens finishing second at the 2010 election."  When you look at the seat as  Labor/Greens marginal a different picture emerges. 

From Leone Taylor, 'The Guardian':

Batman is officially Labor’s safest seat, held by a margin of 24.8%.

But an aggregation of the l...

After Tony Abbott's tearful farewell to Martin Ferguson, the battle for preselection in what has been regarded as one of the ALP's safest seats is hotting up. But how safe is it really? (See post above.) David Feeney is standing for preselection, but Ged Kearney has pulled out. Now there are two new local female candidates standing.
 



From 'The Australian' today:
LABOR'S preselection battle for Martin Ferguson's Melbourne seat of Batman has widened, with two female candidates emerging from the ...

From Hansard:
Mr Oakshott: Yesterday was a significant step forward. We finally have on the record both party leaders in this chamber in a bipartisan way expressing full confidence in the science community of Australia and their accepted advice on man-made climate change. At times it has been like pulling teeth—and I fully respect that, within the ranks of both major parties there are differing views—but it is important, if we are going to establish certainty for the future of policy and a...

The case for more ambitious targets from Australia continues to build as China proposes stronger action.

“China, the world’s biggest polluter, is proposing to set a cap on greenhouse gas emissions as early as 2016 in a move that is being hailed as a potentially transformative step in the fight against climate change.

According to news reports from China, the powerful National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has proposed setting absolute caps that would divorce the growth on emis...

More from Business Spectator on the rumoured behind the scenes ALP struggle over the carbon price: It may prove mere coincidence that the day Business Spectator breaks news of Shorten possibly maneuvering on carbon pricing, Combet declares removing it would be “immoral”, arguably his strongest line since the policy was enacted.Regardless, his doorstop interview makes for intriguing reading in light of the Shorten speculation.
Journalist: Is Labor still committed if you find yourself in Opp...