As Jeremy Sear wrote earlier today, Australia’s main Opposition Liberal Party has voted to change its leader. In an extraordinary result, the presumed favourite, Joe Hockey, came third out of three contestants, with the hardline Conservative and climate change-denier, Tony Abbott, defeating the more moderate, liberal-oriented incumbent Malcolm Turnbull by one vote – 42-41. In addition, there was one informal vote, plus another MP who is a Turnbull supporter was absent ill and was not allowed a proxy vote. It doesn’t augur well for the chances of healing divisions within the brawling party.

Whilst the leadership has been resolved, at least for now, it doesn’t resolve what will happen to the Australian government’s climate change legislation. Last week, the Liberal Party agreed to pass an amended version of the legislation. Thus it seemed certain the contentious legislation would pass the Senate. While some Liberals planned to cross the floor to vote against, there would still be enough in favor to ensure the legislation passed. But at the same time as changing leaders, the Liberals held a vote deciding to seek to defer a final vote on the legislation until the Senate resumes February.

But at the time of writing, debate on the legislation is continuing in the Senate. It is unknown whether a majority of the Senate will support deferring a vote on the legislation by referring it to a Senate Committee inquiry, as the Liberals do not have a majority in the Senate either. The pro-environment Green Party believes the climate change legislation is so bad it should just be voted down and the government should bring forward something better.

If the Senate does not agree to defer a vote on the legislation, it is unknown whether all the Liberals will now vote against the legislation on the final vote – which would probably come within the next day or two. The government would only need seven out of the 32 Liberal Senators to vote with it for the legislation to pass. Given that a number of Liberals had made it clear they would cross the floor to vote against the legislation last week when their party agreed with the government to support amended legislation, they would be hard pressed to complain if a number of their colleagues crossed the floor to vote in favor of the legislation now that the Liberals’ official position has changed.