The Prime Minister will unveil a strategy to put Australia at the forefront of the technology, which captures emissions from coal-fired power plants and permanently stores them deep underground. The critical importance of carbon capture and storage to Australia’s climate change response has become increasingly evident.

The $12 billion North West Metro is not expected to survive in its current form, and four big Rail Clearways projects worth $1 billion, promised by the New South Wales Government but not yet built, are also at risk. It is also possible the Government might defer the $1.37 billion South West Rail Link from Glenfield to Leppington.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has accused Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull of irresponsibility for contradicting the Reserve Bank governor about the financial crisis. Mr Turnbull today appeared to criticise Glenn Stevens’s choice of the words when describing Australian banks’ position in relation to troubled overseas institutions.

Senator Joyce, who has crossed the floor to vote against the Coalition more than 20 times since he entered the Senate in 2005, said his new position as the Nationals’ Senate leader would not alter his ways. “I am who I am by the grace of God, and I’m not going to change,” he said.

West Australian premier-elect Colin Barnett has today unveiled a 17-member cabinet featuring three Nationals MPs and an independent, Liz Constable. The Liberals formed a minority government this week after gaining the support of the Nationals in the state’s hung parliament.

The Opposition Leader has decided he cannot place Joe Hockey in the workplace relations role because he held the portfolio during the Howard years. Mr. Turnbull is also likely to dump key Brendan Nelson supporters and reward several ambitious backbenchers who backed him in this week’s leadership ballot with posts in the outer ministry.

Coming almost 10 months after the Labor Party was swept to power on a promise to tear up the WorkChoices laws, the Workplace Relations Minister’s speech fleshing out the details of the Rudd Government’s replacement industrial relations regime was met with anger from unions, particularly over the revised unfair-dismissal rules.

The vote for the leadership was held among Senator Scullion and the four Nationals Senators. The nine lower house MPs did not vote. Federal Nationals leader Warren Truss was informed of the planned change only last night. It was unclear today whether he supported the move.

Insisting he was not pushed, Senator Eliision said he had received assurances from new Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull as recently as this morning that he could continue in his current portfolio. But he said the demands posed by constant travel across the country and having a young family had prompted him to consider retirement.

After making his mark as a backbencher challenging then treasurer Peter Costello to slash income taxes, new Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull wants to streamline the system and pre-empt the Rudd Government’s own inquiry into tax and welfare review, which is being led by Treasury secretary Ken Henry.