Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has drawn international attention for environmental outbursts which make him sound like the Al Gore of Oz. Thus in the remaining days before the beginning of the UN Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Rudd has made sure he is keeping up the heat on Barack Obama to commit the United States to the looming debacle in Denmark. According to a report at WFAA.com concerning Rudd’s November 30 meeting with President Obama, Rudd attempted to contort the long-term good relations between the two nations into the economic equivalent of a suicide pact for the upcoming conference.

"When it comes to climate change, the clock's ticking for us all," Rudd said. "We're working closely with our American friends to secure the best possible outcome for an important deal for the planet, for our economies, for jobs, for the environment."

Rudd's government wants to slash Australia's greenhouse gas emissions by up to 25 percent below 2000 levels by 2020 if tough global targets can be agreed upon at the Copenhagen summit.

The only problem for Rudd is that the Australian Parliament has pulled the rug out from under him: Only days before the Copenhagen conference, the Senate of Australia’s Parliament has rejected the Aussie equivalent of “cap and trade.”

According the VOANew.com:

Australia's parliament has rejected legislation to set up a carbon trading program, in part because of dissent from climate change skeptics. The decision lands a blow to a key policy of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and could trigger an early election next year.

Australia's left-of-center Labor government says the country is being held hostage by "climate change extremists and deniers," after parliament rejected its carbon-trading legislation.

The program needed the support of conservatives in the upper house of parliament, the Senate, to proceed.

The legislation aims to make carbon-based energy, such as electricity produced from the country's plentiful supplies of coal, more expensive. That would create an incentive for consumers and businesses to switch to renewable sources.

A deal to ensure that the plan passed through the Senate disintegrated when the main conservative opposition, a coalition of Liberals and Nationals, elected a new leader, Tony Abbott. He is a fierce critic of the plan and thinks it will do irreparable damage to Australia's coal-powered economy.

The Senate's rejection of the plan allows the government to call an early election if it chooses, although senior ministers have so far ruled that option out. Instead they plan to re-introduce the legislation to parliament in February to give the opposition one more chance to support it.

In fact, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard had a meltdown, ranting against the Liberal Party:

Today the climate change extremists and deniers in the Liberal Party have stopped this nation from taking decisive action on climate change. The Liberal Party has ignored the national interest and blocked action on climate change. And today the Liberal Party has failed to represent the millions of Australians who want to see this nation take real and decisive action on climate change.

In point of fact, their action may have saved the Australian economy. And the clear repudiation of the Prime Minister’s legislative agenda may trigger an early election which could bounce Rudd right out of power.

The Parliament’s action creates a whole new context for Prime Minister Rudd’s comments on Monday. If the United States and Australia are indeed “working closely... to secure the best possible outcome for an important deal for the planet, for our economies, for jobs, for the environment,” perhaps the American Senate should take note of the action of our allies down under? If the Australian Senate has chosen to preserve Australia’s economy from the carbon tax folly, will the American Senate follow their lead?

Following in the aftermath of “Climategate” and the revelation that the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia destroyed much of the original data which supposedly supported the “climate change” theory and computer models, President Obama has every good reason to keep his actions in Copenhagen down to reading a few platitudes fed to him by his teleprompter, and come home. Now, contemplating Rudd’s imploding career, and the possibility Australians may be going to the polls sooner than their Prime Minister had anticipated, will the Democratic leadership begin looking toward November 2010 with an even greater sense of dread?

Rt. Rev. James Heiser has served as Pastor of Salem Lutheran Church in Malone, Texas, while maintaining his responsibilities as publisher of Repristination Press, which he established in 1993 to publish academic and popular theological books to serve the Lutheran Church.  Heiser has also served since 2005 as the Dean of Missions for The Augustana Ministerium and in 2006 was called to serve as Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America (ELDoNA). An advocate of manned space exploration, Heiser serves on the Steering Committee of the Mars Society. His publications include two books; The Office of the Ministry in N. Hunnius' Epitome Credendorum (1996) and A Shining City on a Higher Hill: Christianity and the Next New World (2006), as well as dozens of journal articles and book reviews.

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rprew said:

The real extremists and deniers "climate change extremists and deniers" - It is becoming increasingly apparent that the "extremists" are people such as Al Gore, Kevin Rudd, Phil Jones, et al. And the same are also the "deniers", denying the fraud that has occurred. They have their eyes closed tightly, fingers crammed into their ears, and are chanting, "There IS no fraud! Climate change IS real! We are all doomed!". The recent exposures are now letting the rest of the world what we have known all along... climate change is nothing more than bad science being used by international bankers for the purpose of global control of the economy. Way to go, Australia! Now if we can get our Congress to do the same.

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December 03, 2009
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DDW said:

	Thank God!! I was beginning to think Australia had lost all of the common sense that it always seemed to have.
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December 03, 2009
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Kenneth Creech said:

	... Great going Aussie parliament!! There is nothing like national backbone. Sometimes it requires nothing but the apparent loss of personal financial and national prestige for people to come to their senses. Perhaps once again have so few given so much for so many or so many owe so much to so few.
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December 03, 2009
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anthony innes said:

No opposition This articel ignores the facts that Rudd (Coal's poster boy) and the opposition represent Big Mining(Unions?) and the local franchise of the Bank for International Settlements(BIS). This was just the perps fighting over the loot. Just watch how fast they ratify Copenhagen while claiming democratic process. This another set back for renewables (small business) verses central power and vast taxes. Rudd,conveniently out of town (look what happens when I turn my back)meeting Obama and then off to Copenhagen for further instructions. Wake Up the BIS Basle Cartel is running all sovereign nations into debt peonage with huge taxes now to be levelled on the last remaining union jobs so they can print fiat currency and sow chaos only they can "manage".

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December 05, 2009
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