Monday 18 January 2010

Abbott won't rule out putting a nuclear power station on a headland near you


Now that headline's a bit rich I know {slaps own hand}.
It may have been the meaning of the words the Federal Leader of the Opposition strung together in a radio interview aired on ABC News Radio early last Friday morning, but it was obviously not what Tony Abbott wanted to convey to the Australian electorate as he began his pursuit of the 'green vote'.
The fact that I posted the headline is a good indication of the level of faith I place in Abbott's sudden discovery that he is a "practical environmentalist" committed to a green country and economy.
His vision for Australia is a frightening mixture of naivity and old, limited solutions based on an idea that the environmental problems can be somehow kept seperate from the issue of climate change and an historical failure to assign a direct economic cost to pollution by industry.
It was hard to keep a straight face when I realised that his Murray-Darling solution would require the country to mark time for the entire first term he was in office and already vested interest have signalled opposition to his plan - as happened when the Coalition last mooted a similar plan.
As for his saying that he wouldn't vigorously pursue nuclear energy production if he became prime minister - I won't even pretend that I don't consider this a whopping political lie by a deliberately deceitful pollie.
The man changes his public policy positions more times than he changes his shirt, but I suspect that his private goals haven't altered much over the years because his support for nuclear options surfaces fairly regularly in media releases.
There are only moral barbarians found on that racetrack to The Lodge these days
.
Possum has a handle on the size of the Coalition's credibility problem.



















One of Possum's graphs over at his post "Abbott's Green Army" which tell the story.

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