Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton in June. (Photo: Alex Ellinghausen/Fairfax Media)

Malcolm Turnbull scrambles NEG in bid to fend off leadership challenge

17 August 2018

Phillip Coorey – Australian Financial Review

The Turnbull government is set to make a key change to the design of the National Energy Guarantee (NEG), as it scrambles over coming days to salvage the policy and stave off a leadership crisis.

Amid rising internal chatter about a challenge by Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton and warnings by MPs that the next 48-to-72-hours was critical, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his senior minsters agreed to dump plans to legislate the emissions reduction target associated with the NEG.

This addresses the principal demand of those threatening to cross the floor – that any commitment to Australia’s Paris climate change targets should not be locked in by legislation.

Cartoon by David Rowe (AFR)

[Read the full Australian Financial Review article, may be paywalled].