Turnbull facing heat on emissions after winter recess

CANBERRA - Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull returns from Parliament's winter recess this week to a mountain of grief.

With the fallout from the humiliating OzCar debacle pouring down upon his shoulders, Turnbull also has to face serious divisions within the Opposition over its approach to the Government's greenhouse emissions trading legislation.

Rumblings over his leadership are continuing, reinforced yesterday by an opinion poll showing his popularity is still plumbing new depths.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will also have his problems: the almost certain defeat of his emissions trading policy in the Senate, impeding his prospects of appearing at the Copenhagen climate change summit at the end of the year with the credentials he wants for Australia as a world environmental leader. He may also face defeat on a number of less significant bills.

But defeat on emissions trading would potentially hand him a powerful trigger for the dissolution of both houses of Parliament and an early election, should the legislation later be blocked a second time.

This would let him go to the polls on an issue most Australians support, against an Opposition in disarray.

The stakes for Turnbull are high.

The latest Newspoll in the Australian showed only 26 per cent of Australians thought he was doing a good job as Opposition Leader, and he trails Rudd as preferred Prime Minister by a vast gulf - 65 per cent to 17 per cent.

Unhappiness within the party has become more apparent since Turnbull had to own up and admit he was fooled into a disastrous confrontation with Rudd over the OzCar scheme to provide finance for ailing car dealers.

The Opposition accused Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan of trying to pressure Godwin Grech, the Treasury official in charge of the scheme, into giving a personal friend and political supporter privileged treatment.

Grech has since admitted the email was a fake written in a bid to influence events. He said he provided a suggested script for the Opposition's attack.

Grech's admission and Turnbull's use of the email is likely to be referred to a parliamentary privilege committee this week, amid renewed fire from the Government.

Today, Turnbull will front a party room meeting that is expected to produce some scathing assessments of his leadership.

In recent weeks there have been suggestions he should be replaced by one of several candidates, including shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey, indigenous affairs spokesman Tony Abbott and infrastructure spokesman Andrew Robb. All have said they do not want the job and support Turnbull.

Senior Liberals have also been hard at work in the past few days shoring up Turnbull and trying to present the Opposition as united around its leader, even as outspoken backbencher Wilson Tuckey launched a public tirade against Turnbull's position on emissions trading.

The Opposition had intended a blanket Senate veto on the legislation, supported - for different reasons - by the Greens, Family First Senator Steve Field and independent Nick Xenophon.

But concerned that defeat of the bill could hand Rudd an early election the Opposition had no chance of winning, Turnbull, without seeking party approval, said the legislation might be passed if nine amendments were made.

The move infuriated many Liberals and the junior Coalition partner, the Nationals, who are adamantly opposed to an emissions trading scheme.

Support for the bill's rejection was strengthened yesterday by the release of a report by Frontier Economics that concluded that the Opposition's proposed alternative would cost 40 per cent less than Rudd's. The report also concluded that the unconditional 5 per cent reduction in emissions by 2020 could be doubled.

The Opposition, supported by the Greens, will also seek to split the Government bill, which combines emissions trading with a legislated target for renewable energy.

The Government says the two must be combined because of overlapping industry assistance, but the Opposition claims the move is a cynical ploy to use renewable energy to force acceptance of the emissions trading scheme.