“The Prime Minister said cabinet had today signed off on the legislation to rescind the carbon price, which would ideally occur at the end of the financial year.”

So where are the howls of protest about Abbott’s lie that he would get rid of the Carbon Pollution Tax “as soon as possible”, and that it would be the “first thing” he would do? The end of the financial year? The same time that Rudd proposed?

Mr Rudd has released the details of his plan to switch to a European-style floating price system a year early, saying it would lead to a reduction in the cost of living which would save an average family $380 a year from July 1, 2014.

Oh, I suppose that it couldn’t be immediate. And I guess that Tony wouldn’t have known that when he promised immediate action, so I suppose November to introduce the Bill which abolishes it by the end of the financial year is immediate enough for Abbott’s cheer squad.

I remember noticing on a website that if you applied for a credit card that you’d get a response within 60 seconds. I suspect most people thought that meant that you’d potentially get “approval” rather than simply a “response”. I suspect that some people will have confused “immediate action” with an “immediate elimination”.

Oh well, at least the new Senate will be able to end it immediately. But wait, there’s more:

But Mr Abbott declined to say what would happen if his deadline was not met.

He also refused to speculate on whether the tax would run for another year if he had to wait for the new Senate to pass his legislation.

There seems to be no urgency about this any more. Neither have we heard anything about plans for his Direct Action scheme since the election.

Mr Abbott tried to present a positive image prior to the election, but he hardly ever talks to the press without complaining about Labor. He’s Prime Minister now. I’d like to hear about his plans for something other than another road. It’ll be interesting to see whether he can ever break the habit of simply being negative about the Opposition. Perhaps, we should run a sweep on when that’ll happen…