FED:Turnbull enlisted to woo marginal voters

AAP General News (Australia)
08-20-2010
FED:Turnbull enlisted to woo marginal voters

MELBOURNE, Aug 20 AAP - The Liberal candidate for the marginal Victorian seat of La
Trobe has enlisted the help of former environment minister Malcolm Turnbull to woo voters
on his environmental credentials.

Mr Turnbull, who was replaced by Tony Abbott as Liberal leader last year, has sent
a letter to residents in the leafy Dandenong Ranges area of the sprawling electorate,
asking them to vote for Jason Wood, who holds the seat by 0.5 per cent.

As Liberal leader, Mr Turnbull supported the Rudd government's emissions trading scheme
(ETS), but the policy was ditched when Mr Abbott took over the party.

The letter, signed "Malcolm Turnbull, Former Minister for the Environment", sets out
Mr Woods' environmental views, including that there is "clear evidence of global environmental
pollution and that humans are making a contribution to changes in our climate".

Mr Turnbull also outlines the environmental initiatives he was responsible for in the
electorate as environment minister.

"Voting for Jason Wood will keep a strong voice for the environment in parliament," he says.

Mr Wood told AAP Mr Turnbull put his political career to the test protecting the environment,
and was the best person to remind Dandenong Ranges residents what the former coalition
government had done for the area.

He said Mr Turnbull had committed almost $3.5 million to the area in the 2007 election,
but Labor had done nothing since it came to power.

"I make no apology for getting Malcolm out there and reminding people that we had all
this committed and Labor took it all away because they got the Greens preference vote,"

he said.

Mr Wood said he was furious with the Greens for doing a preference deal with Labor,
without getting any commitment for the Dandenong Ranges.

"If you are going to preference Labor, that's fine, but get some value for the preferences,
because if Labor's elected, we get no extra funding," he said.

The Liberals' environment spokesman Greg Hunt also had visited the area during the
election campaign, Mr Wood said.

AAP ce/pmu/psm/

KEYWORD: POLL10 LATROBE

� 2010 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.