Election diary Monday 15 July 2013 - Abbott plays the smart alec



The quote of the day
"It is a market in the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no-one"
- Tony Abbott on an emissions trading scheme.
Being a smart alec. Tony Abbott obviously forgets that, as he has said so often, the Liberal is a broad church. There are within it many members concerned about the impact of carbon emissions on global warming and the future of the planet. 

 Including the man he beat so narrowly for the leadership on this very issue of climate change and how to handle it. Malcolm Turnbull wanted the Coalition to stick to the proposal for an emissions trading scheme that his predecessor John Howard had proposed. Abbott wanted none of that nonsense but hid his skepticism behind support for an expensive non-market "solution."

 Today he chose to veer again back towards the climate change deniers with his glib clip about CO2 being an invisible substance as if this made it something of no consequence. It was a stupidly provocative thing to say for all those Liberals who agree with the Turnbull-Howard position. And especially so when the polls overwhelmingly show that he is far less popular with the public than Turnbull.

 The Opposition Leader should be thankful that Labor waited so long to install Kevin Rudd. Had they done the sensible thing back in February it would have been him recently removed from a leaders role by a desperate party rather than Julia Gillard.

 Being presidential. Prime Minister Rudd, meanwhile, was off in Papua New Guinea being in governing mode, encouraged no doubt by further evidence from the pollsters that the Labor revival is still underway.

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