Coalition making sceptics of us all

Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday 4/2/2010 Page: 1

IT WAS a puzzle until Barnaby Joyce solved it for us. Tony Abbott's Coalition doesn't believe that man-made climate change is real. Last year Abbott called the idea "absolute crap". So why would he bother announcing a policy to fix it? Joyce, in his first appearance at the National Press Club as the opposition finance spokesman, was asked to unravel this riddle yesterday. And he did, if you could sort through his trademark quirks along the way, like his definition of insulation - "that's the fluffy stuff that sits in the ceiling for rats and mice to urinate on".

The core of it was this: "Because we represent the alternative government in Australia, that does not mean that we are omnipotent and that our views permeate to become the views of everyone else. We have to provide an outcome that represents the aspirations of the Australian people." In other words, we're doing it because we have to pander to the electorate's views, even if we think they've been gulled by a giant fraud.

And he made plain that lie thinks this is exactly what it is. "I don't know whether Copenhagen was a roaring success," he said, speaking of the global political negotiation over a climate change treaty in the Danish capital in December. "Because every time I turned on the TV the lakes were freezing, the snow was falling and the planes were stuck on the airstrip."

So much for global warming. Apparently concurring, Abbott received the British critic of climate change science, Lord Monckton, in his office yesterday. But if the Coalition doesn't believe in its policy, we have to wonder whether Kevin Rudd believes in his policy any more. Certainly, the government is bringing its emissions trading scheme back to the Parliament once again, though there is scant chance that it will pass.

And Rudd is happy to trade blows with the opposition. He calls its policy a "climate con". Joyce, incidentally, was only too happy to hit back yesterday. If Rudd gets his ETS, every trip to the fridge will be a taxable event. "Every time the light goes on, it's a reminder that Mr Rudd is taxing you," Joyce said. But the intriguing part is that Rudd is not working to rally public opinion. He has not made one speech on climate change in the past few weeks. Instead, Rudd is trying to change the subject.

Knowing that Abbott would deliver his climate change policy on Tuesday, lie sandwiched it with government announcements. On Monday he sent Wayne Swan out to release the Intergenerational Report; yesterday Rudd made a fuss over the first anniversary of his stimulus bill. These are both transparent attempts to talk about the economy, and to edge away from climate change. Is it no longer "the great moral and economic challenge of our time", as Rudd once told us?