The Dreyfus Fies - The Age
For the past seven days, Tony Abbott's carbon price fear campaign continued to grind around the country, but this week he hit four significant bumps in the road.
After weeks of hysterical commentary, the muzzling of challengers within his own party, and invented numbers and diversions, the truth has started to penetrate Abbott's "shock and anger" campaign.
He hit the first bump on Friday.
On Sky News, Liberal powerbroker and long time climate change denier, Senator Nick Minchin, couldn't keep a lid on his real views on climate change any longer. With growing confidence in the effectiveness of Abbott's scare campaign, he admitted what he really thinks; that it's more likely that the world is cooling than warming.
Minchin may be one of the first of Abbott's climate deniers unmasked in the current debate, but he won't be the last.
Reportedly, Abbott foresaw the problem, and recently warned Coalition MPs not to talk about their diverging views on climate change. He wants them instead to focus on the political attack. But Minchin's honesty highlights a deeper fault line in the Coalition, between the true liberals who support an emissions trading scheme, and the sceptics who don't believe in climate change at all.
For Abbott's fear campaign to work, both views must remain equally muzzled.
The next bump in the road came at the weekend.
This Saturday was the much hyped launch of Abbott's "People's Revolt", with a rally outside the Prime Minister's electorate office in Werribee, Victoria.
In the lead-up, the event was billed as "the first demonstration of grassroots people power" in the campaign against the government. It was to be the launch of a national movement.
But according to reports, less than 400 people turned up.
Elsewhere in Victoria a counter rally took place. With just four days' notice, Victorian supporters of the government's plans to tackle climate change organised a rally in Melbourne's CBD. Outstripping the attendance at the "revolt" by more than 10 to one, more than 5000 people showed up to show their support for the government's plans.
The flat earth rally fell fiat, and the biggest bump was yet to come.
Early this week, at a Perth community forum, Abbott let slip his own tightly worn mask.
In a series of comments, Abbott said, "I don't think we can say that the science is settled here". He went on to question whether "emissions are quite he problem that some people say they are", and argued, "whether carbon dioxide is quite the environmental villain that some people make it out to be is not yet proven".
The fact that the Opposition Leader is casting doubt on the science for political purposes will be a revelation to no one. The fact that he momentarily dropped the facade of belief, while also promoting a $30 billion hit on taxpayers that he claims aims to tackle climate change, is deeply ironic.
And then yesterday, climate change adviser Professor Ross Garnaut published the sixth update to his landmark 2008 climate change review.
His paper was clear. It supports a price of carbon as the best way of dealing with emissions - not only because it's a market mechanism, but because it raises revenue that will be used to assist households, support jobs and tackle climate change.
Professor Garnaut made clear that in considering methods to price carbon, market based mechanisms are clearly superior to those that propose direct measures. He says that: "Direct measures would not assure least cost abatement, and are therefore likely to lead to a bigger 'tax' on households."
his supports the government's analysis of Abbott's proposed direct action policy, which will fail to achieve any significant environmental outcome but ill cost working families through increased taxes.
In contrast, the government's proposed carbon price is the cheapest, fairest and most efficient way to cut pollution.
In just seven days we saw splits emerge in a paper thin Coalition, Abbott exposed as pushing a non-solution to a problem he doesn't believe exists, the failed launch of his people's revolt and Professor Garnaut's analysis that the Coalition plan will result in bigger taxes on households than an emissions trading scheme.
As the truth starts to penetrate the fog of Abbott's misinformation, his scare campaign is starting to collapse.
