Turnbull just wrote a post over on his blog which will cause a bit of a shitstorm – effectively accusing Tony Abbott of deliberately lying to the public, among a great many other things. The title: “Time for some straight talking on climate change” sets the scene.
Last week we thought that the Liberal Party leadership challenge wasn’t the end of Coalition disunity, merely the beginning of it – but these guys didn’t even take a breath from last week. Turnbull’s article is over the fold and is worth the read. Turnbull will not go anywhere, quietly, ever.
While a shadow minister, Tony Abbott, was never afraid of speaking bluntly in a manner that was at odds with Coalition policy.
So as I am a humble backbencher I am sure he won’t complain if I tell a few home truths about the farce that the Coalition’s policy, of lack of policy, on climate change has descended into.First, lets get this straight. You cannot cut emissions without a cost. To replace dirty coal fired power stations with cleaner gas fired ones, or renewables like wind let alone nuclear power or even coal fired power with carbon capture and storage is all going to cost money.
To get farmers to change the way they manage their land, or plant trees and vegetation all costs money.
Somebody has to pay.
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.
The whole argument for an emissions trading scheme as opposed to cutting emissions via a carbon tax or simply by regulation is that it is cheaper – in other words electricity prices will rise by less to achieve the same level of emission reductions.
The term you will see used for this is “least cost abatement”.
It is not possible to criticise the new Coalition policy on climate change because it does not exist. Mr Abbott apparently knows what he is against, but not what he is for.
Second, 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, its cooling and the climate change issue is part of a vast left wing conspiracy to deindustrialise the world.
Now politics is about conviction and a commitment to carry out those convictions. The Liberal Party is currently led by people whose conviction on climate change is that it is “crap” and you don’t need to do anything about it. Any policy that is announced will simply be a con, an environmental figleaf to cover a determination to do nothing. After all, as Nick Minchin observed, in his view the majority of the Party Room do not believe in human caused global warming at all. I disagree with that assessment, but many people in the community will be excused for thinking the leadership ballot proved him right.
Remember Nick Minchin’s defense of the Howard Government’s ETS was that the Government was panicked by the polls and therefore didn’t really mean it.
Tony himself has in just four or five months publicly advocated the blocking of the ETS, the passing of the ETS, the amending of the ETS and if the amendments were satisfactory passing it, and now the blocking of it.
His only redeeming virtue in this remarkable lack of conviction is that every time he announced a new position to me he would preface it with “Mate, mate, I know I am a bit of a weather vane on this, but…..”
Third, there is a major issue of integrity at stake here and Liberals should reflect very deeply on it. We have an Opposition whose current leadership dismisses the Howard Government’s ETS policy as being just a political ploy. We have an Opposition Leader who has in the space of a few months held every possible position on the issue, each one contradicting the position he expressed earlier. And finally we have an Opposition which negotiated amendments to the Rudd Government’s ETS, then reached agreement on those amendments and then, a week later, reneged on the agreement.
Many Liberals are rightly dismayed that on this vital issue of climate change we are not simply without a policy, without any prospect of having a credible policy but we are now without integrity. We have given our opponents the irrefutable, undeniable evidence that we cannot be trusted.
Not that anyone would doubt it, but I will be voting for the ETS legislation when it returns in February and if my colleagues have any sense they will do so as well.
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22 Comments
Who was it who said a week is a long time in politics.
These days a weeks is a very long time as liberal leader.
poor old talcum is crying into his krug.
It’s pure comedy! And Talculm does make some valid points. The Opposition doesn’t have a policy. Not that that in itself is unusual, but it does make Abbott’s claims that they will have one that doesn’t cost as much as Labor’s in a couple of months, kind of well…
UNBELIEVABLE!!
But then, given Abbott’s form, he might change his mind again about the whole climate change phenomenon by then anyway..
Here blogs a man who values his preselection lightly.
Ah, there goes Mal, spoiling the orgy of neocon wingnut Abbott love the Oz was rolling in this morning..’bi-election result, thunderous resounding support for Abbott’ etc blah blah
oh and btw ‘Weather Vane’
…let Abbott forever be known as!
Hold on to your hats kids, it’s going to be a wild ride again this week.
Has Turnbull’s end-game has narrowed to two options?
1. Attempt to purge the libs of Minchin, Abbott and cronies
or
2. Burn Minchin, Abbott and the deniers and form his own party.
Either way you’ve got to respect the bloke – massive cajones!!!
Whether vain?
He’s sure got a pair, good on him I say!
News Ltd and its loyal tribe of urgers won’t like this.Watch out Malcom and Lucy! You both now deserve a loyal tribe of people who will watch out for your backs.
Abbott has a cunning plan. Please see Tony Abbott’s Climate Plan B: The Ark
Malcolm is certainly articulate – that’s an excellent read.
It’s such a disaster for the libs – he wants to be PM so he won’t be leaving to start his own party, but he just cannot lead because he is so abrasive and arrogant, but he refuses to give any other leader clear air. I can’t see any resolution for the tories, and unlike Latham, Turnbull could be around for a long time.
Turnbull has just ensured that any future internal destabilisation of Abbott – and criticism of him externally – will have an emasculating shade of panto-hysteria narcissism to it. Any other pro-ETS MP inside the party will now be forced to denounce Turnbull’s ill-discipline, in doing so emasculating their policy dissent. No Lib/Nat voter’s going to be herded away from Abbott by this. Plenty of (CC-maybe) Lib/Nat waverers will be nudged back towards Abbott him by f**k-you-Mal-you-rich-spoiled-bad-loser loyalty to the Coalition. The very best thing that can happen to a hair-margin winner of a leadership spill is for the hair-margin loser to spit the dummy public. All the losers’ (almost-enough) voters are cast arrogantly aside for the sake of one egotist’s pride…and have no choice but to drift across to the winner.
Turnbull’s obviously pulling the pin post-2010. He doesn’t give any more of a f**k about his preselection than he does about his electorate (and his eventual successor there), his staff (who will all need to try to find jobs), any marginal colleagues, and indeed the forty one loyal parliamentarians who voted for him last week. As usual, it’s all about ME ME ME ME ME ME ME…Abbott and Minchin will be laughing and laughing and laughing…and probably prodding Mal with a stick, goading: ‘G’arn, Malcolm – abuse us again, mate! We just went up another two points, and now have pledges of loyalty from everyone from Pyne to Bishop to Malcolm bloody Fraser…’
Huge win for Abbott. He’s starting to look like a contender, IMHO…to anyone not blinded by their own mushy prog-left tunnel vision/wishful thinking. Depends how Copenhagen goes, I guess.
He’s Opposition leader so he’s a contender. 23% preferred PM in Newspoll says there is a long way to go. He should rattle some of the ALP’s complacency and hopefully prod people into raising the level of awareness about global warming. Time Abbott read the IPCC documents himself rather than rely on briefings.
Is a weather vane the same as a weather cock?
Anyone who calls this a ‘win’ for Abbott is clearly a rusted on wingnut voters. Abbott will sound increasingly like the loon he is.
@Jack Robertson – You may hope Turnbull pulls the pin in 2010, but that’s probably not most people’s expectation of him. One slip up by Abbott and another spill will be on. Remember last week’s 42-41 could be this week’s 42-45 (if the informal voter gets some remedial help + Bailey, Fletcher & Bronwyn Mk2).
And do you really think that if Turnbull wants to compete in 2010 that anyone will seriously question his pre-selection. He’d win Wentworth as a independant (or his new party) in a flash anyway.
Turnbull mightn’t be a gracious loser, but do you really think Abbott’s ever going to look like a humble winner?
Remember that Turnbull is a climate change science denier.
He does not deny that climate change is a problem.
He denies that the 40% or more cuts the science says is needed by 2020 to actually prevent the problem is relevant.
You can’t play politics with nature, and the CPRS does so little so late that it is just politics.
At best it would delay by a short time the arrival of 2 degree, then 3 degree, then probably more, global warming.
Turnbull and Rudd both deny the science when it comes to what is needed, and their spin that the CPRS will fix things are perhaps more damaging to our future than the words of the full deniers.
quantize – never voted Libs in my life. Also helped MKingston write “Not Happy, John!’ Loon territory maybe, hardly rusted on Tory voter.
Hot Collar: Turnbull’s leadership was dead after the Godwin Gresch fiasco. He’s just not right for consensual, broad-party politics. Personally I like him a lot, I admire his drive and humour and f**k-you insouciance….but he’s got zero – I mean, zero – chance of leading the Liberals again after today’s outburst. It’s the betrayal of his fellow ETS supporters that will rankle most. It’s easy-peasy to grandstand in the media. There are buckets of his (former) supporters who are doing their best to get behind Abbott, becasue it’s (alone) how parties can rule: thrash things out closed doors, united front publicaly within limits).
Turnbull’s more of an idiot than I’d imagined if he reckons this is the strategy to get back the leadership, btw. Especially as Abbott did OK on the weekend. Pardon typos, dinner time for toddler.
@Jack: OK capeche as far as Turnbull’s comeback to Liberal leadership, but I still suspect he’ll be a major player in Oz politics for a while yet. I’d never vote for him either but he’s got more brass than wind and will find a way to leave his mark.
Possibly true, Hot Collar…it really does depend a lot on Copehagen, I s’pose. The trouble for MT is that the backbench has a way of quickly making even the most substantial figures a bit ridiculous. In fact, the more publicly substantial and media-compelling, the more quickly they become self-neutered rebukes to their own dead-ended ambition. The successful pollies are those who can usually keep their egos – they’ve all got ‘em, no less than MT – in check publicly, keep their powder dry.
He’s done and dusted. Bit of a pity, he’s serious policy and maybe even leadership talent (in something, not politics). If he stands next year I’ll be gobsmacked. Ego-cathartics aside, maybe he’s decided to do everything he can to help set up what he’s punting might be Joe’s eventual shot, in a post-Cope ETS flare-up II here. If so, it’s an even more poignant end to a still-born career: sacrificed not just to (I think) a desperately moot policy (see Michael Wilbur-Ham above), but also to a real lame dud of a potential-PM contender. MT’s much closer to Abbott, worldview and style-wise, than Joe. Imagine how jacked off he’d be to see the avuncular drippy one nick his rightful PM-ship one day, knowing that he’d got there largely thanks to his public sacrificial pyrotechnics..!
Oh dear, it’s a terrible cliche, but politics really is great human drama writ large. Huzzah for ’10! Might have to renew my Crikey sub one of these days, even.
The Libs and Abbott will be well rid of TurnBULL, he’s full of it! Talk about sour grapes, Turnbull was prepared to betray every Australian household by voting with the Government in passing this evil ETS tax on everything. All i want Abbott to do is let our Prime Minister know the Australian public are onto him and won’t put up with his spin much longer. Krudd is using Climate Change to avoid every other major issue that comes across his desk and when they do he just throws a tantrum anyway. (FFS all Krudd cares about is “what’s for @%#@%# @ breakfast”!!) ( “My newspapers are out of @$%@# date” “Who did my @%#@#% crossword” I have never heard a PM talk so much crap as Krudd, i doubt Abbott will win the next election, i do hope he gives Krudd some sleepless nights.
I’m not with Jack Robertson on this. History is not so against Turnbull – remember ‘Lazarus with a triple bypass’? Remember how in his earlier years, Howard leaked sensitive information to the press and then boasted that it was him? Turnbull has years to learn the craft – at least 5 if I’m any judge.
And as for this strengthening Abbott’s position or weakening other ETS promoters – business will know it has a friend in the Libs, but that friend is on the back bench. anyway, how many, and who, were prepared to declare their colours last week?
I think Jack robertson’s big point is the way he has shot from the hip too many times. And I think that’s fair, but by the same token I then think of Hawke. And Keating. And Joh. And others who, like or loathe them, were successful politicians, but certainly had to learn the art of shutting up.
Their memoirs are usually fascinating precisely because they finally let down that floodgate!