Parliament faces extra hours on ETS

The federal government is giving parliament just two days to pass any negotiated
amendments to its emissions trading legislation.
But it will consider extra sitting hours and sitting days if the Senate in
particular needs more time to make up its mind.
Parliament is due to rise for the long summer break on Thursday, the last scheduled
sitting day before December's UN climate summit in Copenhagen.
The government has set aside Monday and Tuesday for a largely meaningless debate on
11 bills setting up the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.
That is because the draft laws are unchanged from those rejected by all non-Labor
senators in August.
Amendments being thrashed out behind the scenes by Labor and the coalition are
unlikely to reach the Senate before Wednesday.
They first have to be approved by cabinet and the Labor caucus before being
presented to the opposition front bench and an increasingly fractious coalition
joint parties room on Tuesday.
The opposition and cross benches have used the emissions trading debate to push the
respective causes of the coalition's hard right and green left.
Opposition Senate Leader Nick Minchin riled some of his moderate Liberal colleagues
on Thursday by delivering a withering attack on climate change and the need for an
emissions trading scheme during a fiery speech in the upper house.
He described the scheme, in its current form, as an abomination that should be
rejected a second time.
Senator Minchin and fellow frontbencher Tony Abbott will provide the strongest
resistance inside the opposition front bench to any deal Ian Macfarlane, the
coalition's chief climate change negotiator, brokers with Climate Change Minister
Penny Wong on Monday.
Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull has the overwhelming support of his front bench
for a deal but he faces a revolt by up to a third of his MPs and senators inside and
outside the party room.
Backbencher Dennis Jensen, one of the Liberal Party's most vocal climate change
sceptics, believes he will be joined by up to 30 colleagues when he crosses the
floor of parliament to vote against any negotiated deal.
But time may beat both the coalition rebels and the government.
Labor has a string of other bills it wants passed before Thursday, including
disputed changes to the Youth Allowance.
Measures aimed at cleaning up the re-registration of providers of education services
for overseas students, family tax benefit changes and Fair Work amendments also are
on the list for upper house approval.
The Senate's draft legislative program for Wednesday and Thursday makes no mention
of debate on the ETS.
Instead, the time is being reserved for legislation the government would like passed
this year, rather than be postponed until February.
So it was no surprise on Sunday when Senator Wong again indicated the possibility of
extended sitting hours, even days, to accommodate a negotiated ETS.
Parliament could be sitting on Friday, possibly the weekend, and into next week.
There is also a chance we may be entering the last parliamentary week of the Rudd
government's first term. If a double-dissolution election is called for March, MPs
and senators will not need to return to Canberra on February 2.