Turnbull meets resistance in WA

Wherever Malcolm Turnbull goes, he runs headlong into opposition to his views on negotiating with the government on the ETS:

Malcolm Turnbull has been delivered a slap in the face by the West Australian Liberal Party, with near unanimous hostility towards his plan to amend Labor's emissions trading scheme before the Copenhagen summit. A fiery annual state conference of the West Australian state Liberals last night passed a motion that the federal Liberal Party should "not conclude" negotiations with the Federal Government until after the December summit and, even then, support for an agreement should not be considered a fait accompli. The motion represents yet another serious headache for the embattled Liberal leader, who has been struggling to gain broader support from an openly hostile backbench and is now facing speculation that he could be replaced as Opposition Leader before Christmas.

Only one delegate out of an estimated 400 in attendance backed the Turnbull position that it would be "most unwise" to do nothing to amend Labor's scheme.

Speaker after speaker at the conference expressed scepticism about the science of climate change and warned that the Rudd Government's scheme would be disastrous for the West Australian economy, which is heavily dependent on mining and agriculture.

And at least one speaker had the ETS summed up nicely:

Liberal senator Mathias Cormann also spoke strongly in favour of the motion, saying Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's claim that the scheme would help reduce emissions was a "fraud, a scam, a con on the Australian people … In the absence of a comprehensive global agreement, it will push up the price of energy, it will cost jobs, it will place pressure on our economy, it will put our energy security at risk … and it will do nothing to help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions."

Read it here.