Three-quarters of people “feel safer” with Prime Minister Turnbull as leader, the Seven-ReachTel poll found.
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It’s hard to see it being a vote-winner in the marginal seats of western Sydney, where there’s a higher smoking rate than the general population.
Mr Turnbull is enjoying an extended period of success since taking over as Prime Minister, and recent polls suggest he holds an election-winning lead over Bill Shorten and the Labor Party.
Senior opposition frontbencher Anthony Albanese says there will be extensive industry consultation before the target is set in March to determine Labor’s market-based mechanism.
The summit aims to enshrine the 2030 emission reduction promises now made by 173 nations, and agree on monitoring and verification rules and regular reviews to try to increase them over time to a level that would contain global warming to 2C.
“But we should not shy away from ambition”, he will say.
He refers, of course, to the Coalition’s Direct Action policy – a policy Turnbull himself has variously described as a “fig leaf” over emissions reduction and “a recipe for fiscal recklessness on a grand scale” – and its low-ball emissions target of by 26-28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.
The Coalition remains in a strong position on a two-party preferred basis, maintaining a 53-47 lead over Labor.
The Business Council of Australia and the Australian Chamber of Commerce were more cautious than the Minerals Council in their reaction to the Labor target, with BCA chief executive Jennifer Westacott warning the Climate Change Authority’s 45 per cent reduction target was just one of a range of potential targets.
The government’s own modelling found that the economic impact of a 45% target would be minimal.
“Mr Turnbull promotes a policy he doesn’t believe”, Shorten argued.
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Earlier in the interview, the Prime Minister came close to critiquing Mr Abbott directly, when he rebuked people who have called on Australia to take “unilateral” action in Syria by sending soldiers into the region to tackle ISIS.
