Leader dragging Libs to relevance

MALCOLM Turnbull has revealed his psychology as a "crash through or crash" leader. Sooner or later the authentic Turnbull was going to emerge.

There will be three results from Turnbull's high-risk ploy of putting his job on the line - he can expect to win party-room approval to negotiate with the Rudd government on climate change, he will stay leader, and sections of the Liberal Party will harden against him.

On the substance Turnbull is right. It is a political and policy blunder for the Liberals to define themselves by ideological negatives on climate change and offer nothing. This is the road to ruin.

His hardline critics are on a political suicide mission. Their tactics would impose a triple loss upon the Liberal Party - inviting Rudd to a double-dissolution election, ensuring that Labor would be returned with a larger majority and guaranteeing Rudd would be able to pass after the election his current bill unamended. How mad is this trio of achievements?

With this threat Turnbull concedes he cannot negotiate an internal Liberal Party truce over climate change. Nor could any other leader. This is a function not just of Turnbull's personality but of a party hopelessly divided.

Facing such divisions Turnbull took resort to leadership assertion. While a reflection of his deepest instincts, it is a rational calculation. At present there is no willing and viable alternative leader. The frontbench is behind Turnbull in proposing amendments to the Rudd government. His aim is to shift the debate away from "believers v deniers" ideology into a policy debate about the type of emissions trading scheme.

The Liberal Party expects its leader to put his stamp on the brand. Turnbull's message is that win or lose the next election, he will fight that election on his platform, not that of his Liberal Party opponents. Turnbull's threat is not phoney. Indeed, he is utterly serious. He thinks the rebel position of outright opposition to Rudd's policy will bring long-term disaster to the Liberal Party.

The bigger issue arises at the second stage. What happens after the government-opposition negotiation on the proposed amendments? That defies prediction. Turnbull will need to extract substantial concessions from the Rudd government in order to persuade his party room to actually pass the legislation. At this point nobody knows whether or not Rudd's policy will be passed this year, but the gap between the two sides remains wide.

Remember that Australia, sooner or later, will have an ETS. The issue is whether the opposition makes itself irrelevant or achieves meaningful concessions from Rudd's current model.