Former PM tells Bar Association that policy remains evasive as long as group of Coalition MPs believes climate change is a fraud

The former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull says a “constituency” of Coalition MPs believes climate change is a fraud, and that the issue has become a “third rail” for the Liberal party.

Speaking at the Australia Bar Association’s annual conference in Sydney on Friday night, Turnbull, the guest of honour at the event, said a climate-sceptic group within his own party held the line that “if you don’t do what we want, we will blow the show up,” the Australian reported.

“And that is essentially what you’ve seen — and so the problem is that everybody loses”.

Turnbull, who was replaced as prime minister by Scott Morrison in August and subsequently retired from politics, was asked at the event about his personal commitment to act on climate change. He famously crossed the floor in opposition to vote with Labor in support of an emissions trading scheme, but as prime minister led a government with little resolve to reduce emissions.

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“The truth is … the Liberal Party and the Coalition is not capable of dealing with climate change,” Turnbull told the conference.

“It is just a fact I regret to say. It is like a third rail. We have at the present time in the Coalition, a group of, a constituency, that is the best way to describe it, who believe we should get out of [the Paris Agreement], that climate change is a fraud, the more you have the better, and are literally on another plane.

“They are not prepared to play ball with everybody else.”

Turnbull has previously conceded that any policy on climate change would be extremely difficult for the Liberal-National Coalition because it was treated as an ideological matter within the party.

“The emissions issue and climate policy issues have the same problem within the Coalition of ... bitterly entrenched views that are actually sort of more ideological views than views based,” he had said while being forced out as prime minister.

During an appearance on the ABC’s Q&A program this month, he described his removal from the prime ministership as an act of unexplained madness, and accused leading conservatives of “blowing up” the government.