On this day, 30 September 2009, Tony Abbott had another of his Moments, which led him to become the opposition leader, and then three years later, the Prime Minister…
“Abbott’s ‘road to Damascus’ was in fact the road between Bendigo and Beaufort in country Victoria. He explains in his book Battlelines that it was during a car trip to a Liberal Party fundraiser on 30 September that former House of Representatives speaker David Hawker told him there would be a bush revolt against what was being seen as just another tax. Farmers were worried that an ETS would put them out of business.”
(Cassidy, 2010:23)
and then
“Abbott spoke for about 20 minutes, plugged his book Battlelines, outlined the difficulties confronting the party and then opened the floor to questions. After several questions on the ETS, including the impact on farmers and whether it was wise to commit to a policy before Copenhagen, Abbott called for a show of hands on whether the Coalition should support the ETS. Only a handful voted yes.
Abbott, until that point Turnbull’s main defender on the ETS, became increasingly blunt. According to many in the room, he left no doubt that he was a climate change sceptic. He ruminated there had been many changes of climate over the millennia not caused by man. Finally, he said the science behind climate change was “crap”, at which stage Wilson snapped awake.
“I think I was nodding off down at the back of the room when all of a sudden he came out with the comment that the science around climate change was `absolute crap’ and I kind of jumped back awake and wrote down his quote,” [Craig Wilson, editor of the Pyrenees Advocate] says.
Rintoul, S. (2009) The town that turned up the temperature. The Australian 12 December.
The context was that in October 2009 the “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” was coming up for its second attempt at becoming law. The problem for the opposition parties was whether to support or oppose. The National Party were implacably opposed, the Liberals split (they needed to win back seats they had lost in 2007, in the first climate change election). The problem for them was that they had gone into that election promising an emissions trading scheme not that dissimilar to what was about to be voted on.
The Liberal Party leader, Malcolm Turnbull, was already unpopular in his party, and about to become more so (see a blog post coming up in early October).
See also –
Tony Abbott, once the ‘climate weathervane’, has long since rusted stuck
On this day the PPM was 384.95 ppm. Now it is 421ish – but see here for the latest.
Why this matters.
It doesn’t, really, unless you are a politics tragic and history buff…
What happened next?
Abbott toppled Turnbull. Then put the frighteners on Rudd. Then did his wrecking ball impression with Gillard. Then became Prime Minister, briefly. What a horror show.