Abbott: ETS is old fashioned socialism

16 December, 2009 by

The ETS at work

The ETS at work

Redistributing wealth from “the rich” to “the poor” is what socialism is all about, and oddly, that’s exactly what the ETS would do. Nothing for the climate, of course – don’t forget that. And Tony Abbott is quick to point this out:

The new leader will sharpen his attack on the CPRS, moving beyond attacking it as “a great big tax” to accusing Labor of using it as a wealth-transfer mechanism.

Homing in on Mr Rudd’s assurances that he will compensate low-income earners to the value of 120 per cent of the impact of the CPRS on their living costs, Mr Abbott will say: “This is a redistribution policy dressed up as a climate change policy. The Liberal Party, by contrast, doesn’t like new taxes, doesn’t like politicised handouts and doesn’t like new bureaucracies.”

After winning the Liberal Party leadership by a single vote to end weeks of opposition infighting earlier this month, Mr Abbott turned the party’s policy on its head by reversing Mr Turnbull’s previous support for Labor’s CPRS.

Mr Turnbull had previously insisted that Mr Rudd wanted the opposition to reject his legislation so he could call a double dissolution of parliament and an early election.

But Mr Abbott will tell the NSW’s Liberal Party’s Millennium Forum that he would relish any election on emissions trading because the campaign would be about tax, not the environment.

“Mr Rudd’s policy will be to save the environment by raising the cost of living,” the speech says.

“Oppositions should live for elections because they are the only way to become a government. So I have a clear message for Mr Rudd and the early election that he has threatened us with: ‘Bring it on and we will be ready for you’.”

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Rudd ducks question on ETS cost… three times!

15 December, 2009 by

"You're dithpicable, Kev"

"You're dithpicable, Kev"

Thanks to Tony Abbott, the government actually has a fight on its hands to persuade the Australian people of the merits of the ETS. If Turnbull had been leader, this would have been waved through without a second thought. How stupid does that look now, eh, Malcolm?

KEVIN Rudd has refused to directly address Tony Abbott’s claim that Labor’s proposed carbon emissions trading system will cost average Australian families $1100 a year.

Instead, the Prime Minister has forecast a Coalition government’s response to climate change would wrap Australians in red tape by allowing Canberra bureaucrats to dictate individual behaviour. [Yeah, Kev, you’d know all about red tape. That’s what Labor does best, isn’t it – big government, red tape, regulation, interference in every aspect of our lives, and massive taxes, just like the ETS – Ed]

In a television interview yesterday, Mr Rudd was asked three times to respond to Mr Abbott’s $1100 claim, which has been at the centre of the Opposition Leader’s political attack since he won the Liberal leadership a fortnight ago.

Each time, he refused to address the figure.

Later yesterday, as Mr Rudd prepared to leave Australia for the UN-organised climate change conference in Copenhagen, Mr Abbott accused him of squirming on questions about his “great big new tax”.

Finally, finally, Rudd is on the ropes.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Abbott: Rudd's Copenhagen entourage an "unfair expense"

12 December, 2009 by

Rudd wants to rule the world

Rudd wants to rule the world

But surely Statesman Rudd requires all of those 114 delegates (including a personal photographer) in order to appear sufficiently like a future UN secretary general for the unofficial job interview he’s attending? Oh, you guys all think he’s going for climate talks? Ha, ha – good one.

Opposition leader Tony Abbott says the size of the Australian delegation to the UN climate conference in Copenhagen is an unfair expense on tax payers.

The Opposition says Kevin Rudd will be taking 114 people to the conference – a larger contingent than that of Britain or India.

World leaders will be joining the conference next week to try and negotiate a global climate agreement.

Mr Abbott says the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd should be focussing on Australia.

“I think it’s in a sense admirable that Kevin Rudd is prepared to risk jet lag for our country,” he said.

“But the people who he’s really got to persuade about his whopping great big emissions tax are here in Australia, not in Copenhagen.”

Rudd cares little for domestic politics at the moment – his focus is the world stage.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

Tony Abbott: Why I had to take a stand on the ETS tax

12 December, 2009 by

Writing in The Australian:

As things stand, there will almost certainly be a climate change election. It won’t just be about climate change, but that will be the totemic issue. The government will say that lifting the price of carbon is necessary to help the environment. That might be the case one day, but certainly not now. The challenge is to find ways to improve the environment without a great big new tax.

When Winston Churchill drove to Buckingham Palace in the dark days of 1940 to accept the king’s commission, he felt that his whole life had been but a preparation for this moment, or so he recounts in his memoirs. This is not wartime Britain. And I am certainly not Churchill. Still, I feel well equipped to take on the leadership of the party in what are testing times for the conservative side of politics.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With:

Wong and Brown: the Deniers

9 December, 2009 by

My denial is this big

My denial is this big

Tony Abbott has stated a very simple fact that many others do not have the guts to state: the world has not warmed significantly since 2001, and may have even cooled. There seems nothing particularly controversial about that statement. The temperature data shows it clearly (if you look at the satellite record and ignore the surface record with its convenient manual “adjustments” that always seem to be upwards, that is). Even the Climategate emails acknowledge it – remember the quote “we can’t account for the lack of warming”?

But Penny Wong, the person most intimately acquainted with the ETS and climate change policy in Australia, just cannot deal with facts. Neither can enviro-loony Bob Brown, and both resort to spin and obfuscation in response. First off, here’s the Wong-bot:

“He is out there publicly talking about the world cooling when we have so many world leaders … going to Copenhagen because they are concerned about climate change,” she said.

“We see Mr Abbott talking about the globe cooling as the rest of the world is trying to work its way to tackling climate change.”

A gobsmacked [“gobsmacked”? Fine journalism there from Fairfax- Ed] Greens Leader Bob Brown said Mr Abbott’s comments would alienate conservatives.

“In a world where both big and small business understand the science of climate change and the need for appropriate action,” Senator Brown said.

Wong and Brown can’t handle the truth that the planet hasn’t warmed for a decade – in other words, they’re in denial.

Read it here. (h/t Andrew Bolt)

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

Mad Malcolm loses it completely

7 December, 2009 by

Mad Malcolm and the Monk

Mad Malcolm and the Monk

How the Liberals ever thought that Turnbull could be Prime Minister. Now he’s showing his true colours, ranting and raving like a Latham clone, and threatening to vote with the government on the next ETS vote:

Former Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull has unleashed an attack on his successor Tony Abbott, describing his climate change position as “bullshit”.

In a strongly-worded blog entry posted this morning, Mr Turnbull personally attacks Mr Abbott for putting the party’s integrity on the line, saying Coalition climate change policy has descended into “farce”, because it does not have a policy.

He vows to cross the floor and vote for the Government’s emissions trading scheme and urges his colleagues to follow him.

…

“So any suggestion that you can dramatically cut emissions without any cost is, to use a favourite term of Mr Abbott, ‘bullshit.’ Moreover he knows it.

“It is not possible to criticise the new Coalition policy on climate change because it does not exist.”

Mr Turnbull goes on to describe those who backed Mr Abbott’s leadership as climate change sceptics. [Yes, and your point is? – Ed]

“As we are being blunt, the fact is that Tony and the people who put him in his job do not want to do anything about climate change. They do not believe in human caused global warming.

“As Tony observed on one occasion ‘climate change is crap’, or if you consider his mentor, Senator Minchin, the world is not warming, it’s cooling and the climate change issue is part of a vast left wing conspiracy to deindustrialise the world.

It must be obvious to the public and the media by now that Turnbull is a dangerous megalomaniac who cannot bear the fact that Abbott’s policy on climate is actually more popular with the core Australian voter than his own. Tony Abbott, you have an enemy in your midst who will have to be neutralised in whatever way possible. If you’re trying to destroy the Liberal party and ensure they remain in opposition for a generation, Malc, you are going the right way about it.

VISIT TURNBULL’S BLOG POST AND LEAVE A COMMENT HERE. [Link dead – Web Archive HERE]

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Dream start for Abbott

7 December, 2009 by

From The Australian

From The Australian

A series of headlines to cheer the spirit. Rather than the disaster the media had hoped for, Tony Abbott appears to be galvanising Liberal support.

There were dire predictions that the Liberals could lose the seat of Higgins to the Greens — Labor did not run a candidate in either by-election — and that there would be a big swing in Bradfield against the Liberals because of Mr Abbott’s opposition to the ETS.

After counting continued yesterday, it appeared the Liberals would get a small swing towards them in both seats [of Bradfield and Higgins] on a two-party-preferred basis and possibly a small swing against them on primary votes.

The Newspoll survey, conducted from Friday to Sunday, exclusively for The Australian, showed a rise of four percentage points in the Liberals’ primary vote, taking the Coalition’s support to 38 per cent compared with the government’s unchanged 43 per cent.

The government still has an overwhelming two-party-preferred vote of 56 to 44 per cent, but Mr Abbott has improved on Mr Turnbull’s last position as preferred prime minister and won strong endorsement among Liberal voters.

Support for Mr Rudd as preferred prime minister fell five percentage points last weekend from 65 to 60 per cent and Mr Abbott started on 23 per cent, a rise of nine points compared with Mr Turnbull’s 14 per cent the previous weekend.

Mr Abbott’s standing as preferred prime minister is better than all Mr Turnbull’s polling against Mr Rudd since the controversy over the then Liberal leader’s use of a fake email from then Treasury official Godwin Grech to attack the Prime Minister.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Rudd runs scared from climate debate

6 December, 2009 by

Denying the people a debate

Denying the people a debate

… with some half-baked excuse about the Opposition “not having a policy” – why on earth that would stop him debating the issue? Well, actually, I think we know the real reason, don’t we, readers?

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has dismissed a challenge for a series of public debates over climate change, saying the Federal Opposition needs to have a policy first.

Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says he wants to have the debates over the proposed emissions trading scheme before the Government reintroduces the legislation in February.

But Mr Rudd says Mr Abbott should instead focus his efforts on developing a Coalition policy.

“Mr Howard had a policy on climate change, Mr Turnbull had a policy on climate change – it was called an emissions trading scheme,” he said.

“Mr Abbott – the current leader of the Liberal Party – does not have any policy on climate change.

“I’d suggest the Leader of the Opposition calms down, puts in the hard yards and actually develops a policy.”

Despite the attempt at matey banter, and patronising put downs of Tony Abbott, it is still transparent as a sheet of Glad Wrap, Kevin!

If you don’t turn up, you lose.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Turnbull backs Rudd on climate

4 December, 2009 by

Not worth reading

Not worth reading

“Which Side Are You On” Alert, as Malcolm Turnbull backs Kevin Rudd’s attack on Tony Abbott’s climate policies:

KEVIN Rudd has launched his campaign to demolish Tony Abbott, warning that the new Opposition Leader wants to dot the nation with nuclear reactors and reinstate John Howard’s industrial relations laws.

The Prime Minister has also accused Mr Abbott of espousing “magic pudding politics” by claiming Australia could tackle climate change without the market-based solution of putting a price on carbon.

And Malcolm Turnbull, ousted by Mr Abbott as Liberal leader on Tuesday, has reignited party tension by endorsing Mr Rudd’s argument on the issue. (source)

Here is the extract from Turnbull’s newsletter, from which I have now unsubcribed with great haste:

And I regret that the party room changed its policy on climate change from one of supporting the emissions trading scheme legislation, as amended at our request, to opposing it.

…

Many people have asked me whether it is possible to cut emissions without an ETS, a carbon tax or raising electricity prices. The short answer is “No”.

If I never hear Malcolm Turnbull’s name again, it will be too soon. A disgrace to his party, and as Andrew Bolt puts it, “Liberal’s Latham.”

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

No ETS in Coalition policy

3 December, 2009 by

The way ahead for Australia

The way ahead for Australia

The Coalition policy on climate change will not include any ETS or carbon tax, and will re-open the debate on nuclear power – about time too. Penny Wong, in her closing speech to the Senate yesterday held up the examples of the US, UK and France as countries which have working emissions trading schemes, conveniently forgetting one key fact: they all have massive nuclear power capability.

TONY Abbott plans to fight a climate change election using land management and energy efficiency measures to slash greenhouse emissions instead of an emissions trading scheme or a carbon tax.

And as the Senate yesterday buried Kevin Rudd’s proposed carbon emissions trading scheme, the new Opposition Leader said his alternative means of reducing emissions would meet the same targets for sharp reductions in emissions proposed by Labor.

Mr Abbott’s promise came as Labor folded in the face of his dare for an early election on climate.

Despite the Senate’s rejection of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme establishing a double-dissolution trigger, Julia Gillard said the government would give the Coalition “one more chance” to change its mind. The Acting Prime Minister said Labor would introduce a new CPRS bill, including amendments agreed to by the Coalition under ousted leader Malcolm Turnbull, to parliament in February in the hope that “calmer heads” within the Coalition would shift their positions. (source)

But there is precious little hope of that:

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says he expects the Coalition’s position to harden over the summer break.

He has ruled out taking an emissions trading scheme or a carbon tax to the next election as Coalition policy and says there is “very little” chance the Coalition would vote for one in February.

Nationals Senate Leader Barnaby Joyce does not think the public will be impressed by the idea of a third vote.

“The Australian people will just get furious with you. We’ve made our decision, you’re playing a game and we’re sick of it,” he said.

“Get over it, get on with life and get back to the next item of politics.” (source)

Well said, Barnaby, who may soon be on the front bench…

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,
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