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Canberra: Australia's richest politician, Malcolm Turnbull, was elected leader of the conservative opposition on Tuesday, bringing guarded support for the government's emissions trading scheme planned to start in 2010.
The move aims to end destabilising speculation about the leadership of the Liberal Party, which has struggled to gain in opinion polls since Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's Labor won power last November, ending almost 12 years of conservative rule.
"Our support is for an emissions trading scheme properly designed, brought in at an appropriate time. We nominated 2011-12," Turnbull told journalists after his party dumped Brendan Nelson, a former doctor blamed for a string of strategy blunders and slumping popularity.
Turnbull, an environment minister in the previous government, was a strong advocate of Australia ratifying the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, but was rebuffed by former prime minister John Howard.
A former merchant banker and ex-leader of the republican movement, Turnbull won 45 votes to 41 in a secret party ballot, party officials said. He is likely to re-cast his team to combat Rudd's popularity, which has been at record levels in the ten months since his election.
The next election is not due until late 2010, but betting agencies said the odds of a conservative victory had shortened after Turnbull's win.
Turnbull said the emissions regime planned by Rudd's Labor would sacrifice Australian jobs and industry, coming ahead of concerted international action on global warming to be agreed at a climate conference next year in Copenhagen.
The conservatives, backed by big business, have urged Rudd to delay carbon trading by at least a year, and wait for major emitters China, India and the United States to agree on action.
Public perception
Turnbull is seen as charismatic, progressive and ideas-driven, and with his support for signing the Kyoto pact and saying "sorry" for past injustices to Australia's Aborigines, has distanced himself from Howard's dryer brand of conservatism.
But critics say he must also counter widespread public perception that he is arrogant and aloof. To convince people he is just a regular guy, Turnbull used to catch a public bus around his diverse Sydney electorate.
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