Leadership is back in danger, page-265

Turnbull's biggest error of judgment was going all in on Godwin Grech's little plot to take down Rudd. It showed a fair bit of political naivety, not insulating himself from that affair to some degree - he could have let it play out easily without getting his hands dirty - it took some time for him to recover from it politically. The emissions trading issue that effectively got him rolled for the leadership was a bit of jumped up opportunism by the conservative faction as much as anything else IMO. Howard had suggested that an ETS was the most preferable option, Greg Hunt, the current minister for the environment was a strongly vocal supporter of an ETS right up until Abbott changed the policy, and on top of that, it is certainly more in line with the philosophical leanings of the liberal party than the Direct Action scheme currently in operation.

With Direct Action the entire tax base pays particular companies to reduce their carbon emissions, if that company chooses to do so, effectively raising everyone's taxes regardless of whether they consume the company's products. With an ETS, the additional tax burden goes to the companies, and is then passed onto the consumers, so that only people who choose to consume that particular product end up paying the premium related to emissions.

off topic. sorry.