Yesterday the Liberal Party elected luke warm climate sceptic Tony Abbott to be its leader by one vote over the incumbent Malcolm Turnbull. Andrew Bolt has an informative commentary. There is also this great article from Jo Nova. But I am not convinced ClimateGate played much part in this.
I do not often comment on party politics here but with the mainstream media (MSM) hyperventilating over “climate change” and positively wetting themselves with excitement at the marvel of the Rudd Govts plan to save the planet with the proposed ETS (Emissions Trading Scheme) – giant new tax, a few observations are in order.

For a few months now the diehard green MSM has been pressuring the opposition parties to agree to the Rudd/Wong ETS scheme – you would think that to not do so would risk the existence of life on earth.
Turnbull tried to steer a course that would sign on to an amended scheme and the Govt called his bluff by agreeing to a raft of amendments. No amendments altered the fact that the ETS was simply a giant new tax that gave Labor huge opportunities to redistribute national wealth to labor voting constituents. No wonder the ALP and the MSM are mad keen on the ETS.

Back to Turnbull, now it seems to me that Malcolm made a critical error over the last month or so in misreading the depth of anti-ETS feeling in his own party. The MSM had always painted anti-ETS numbers in the opposition as only a tiny rump of a few “deniers” in the Liberals while conceding there were a few more in the smaller rural/conservative National Party. I have to admit to being conned to some extent by the MSM on this issue.
Over the last week it became obvious that anti-ETS votes in the Liberals were indeed sgnificant and that Malcolm Turnbull had gravely misjudged the numbers in his own party by thinking he could “crash through” with his plan to sign on to the Rudd/Wong ETS and his party would meekly follow.

After the election of Tony Abbott he called a party vote on whether or not to defer the ETS in the Senate – and won the vote 55-29.
Those numbers show the extent to which Malcolm Turnbull was conned by the pressure of the MSM into not understanding the numbers in his own parliamentary party.
Next Saturday there are byelections in “safe Liberal seats” in both Sydney and Melbourne, the ALP is not standing so the MSM are painting the contests as opportunities for the Greens to maybe pull off some historic victory on the back of the populations enthusiasm to save the planet by bringing on the ETS. Two candidates from the new Climate Sceptics party are standing as independents – an interesting weekend indeed coming up.