By Andrew L. Urban.
Malcolm Turnbull’s backing off trying to bully his party into a NEGative plan (The Australian, August 18, 2018) has given the Liberals a golden opportunity to effect leadership change without spilling blood. In October 2009, then Liberal Party leader Malcolm Turnbull said, “I will not lead a party that is not as committed to effective action on climate change as I am.” Now that the Liberal Party has once again demonstrated that it is still not as committed, it’s time to resign, Prime Minister. Staying on would be hypocritical, not to mention politically disastrous; he’d be flogged to a pulp, shorn of authority, a laughing stock for Labour to pester until the election. Then death.
Back then, 2009 that is, the ABC’s Four Corners reported: ‘It was a potentially dangerous strategy because it tied his leadership to a single issue. Just how risky that declaration was is only now becoming clear. ” Well, yes, prophetic….. At that stage coalition MPs had clear doubts about supporting an emissions trading scheme but now a range of Nationals and Liberals have told Four Corners they don’t believe that climate change is primarily man-made.”
The ABC report went on to quote the Liberals: ” … the decision, in 2007 to embrace the concept of man-made climate change and create a policy supporting an emissions trading scheme, was a mistake that was forced on the party by the opinion polls of the time and the proximity of the federal election.” Well, blow me down, we must be in a time warp; or has time stood still?
That was nine years ago. Malcolm’s controller, the Lucy, has evidently failed to convince the boy of that dreary truth that doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result is madness. Madness.
So the Liberals must take Malcolm Turnbull at his word, read him back his own words and buy him a nice farewell gift – maybe Ian Plimer’s excellent recent book, Climate Change Delusion and the Great Electricity Ripoff. Malcolm Turnbull the great anti-CO2 crusader obviously hasn’t bothered to read it.
Plimer plunges the dagger of logic into the heart of the matter: “Annual human emissions (3% of the total) of carbon dioxide are meant to drive global warming. This has never been shown. If it could be shown, then it would also have to be shown that natural emissions (97%) don’t drive global warming.”
From that 2009 Four Corners report: “This view that an election could be fought and won while opposing major greenhouse gas reductions is at odds with Malcolm Turnbull’s view that the Coalition must have a strong policy on greenhouse gas reductions or face electoral ruin.” So go, Malcolm, and read Ian’s book.