Tony Abbott is the most selfish, destructive politician Australia has ever endured.
In an astonishing display of hubris, he informed Ray Hadley that dumping the clean energy target would help the Coalition win the next election.
Did he speak about climate change and the need for emissions reduction? No. Did he speak about energy reliability? No. Did he speak about jobs? No. Did he speak about affordability? No. Did he speak about investment? No.
“This is an opportunity for us to sharpen the difference with Labor on an issue which is of deep concern to the public, on a hip-pocket issue, where we can be on the side of voters and Labor is on the side of green extremists,” Abbott told Hadley. “We’ve got to change the debate. Let Labor be the party of renewable energy and us the party of reliable energy”.
Ignoring the increasingly desperate cries from industry for some sort of certainty in energy policy, Abbott wants to play political games. He doesn’t want consensus, he doesn’t want solutions. He wants to run the same dishonest campaign that he did about the carbon price where even his own chief of staff admitted they deliberately lied for the sake of “brutal retail politics”.
Abbott contends that Australia risks de-industrialising our country “in our obsession to drive down emissions”.
He said he would have liked to scrap the RET altogether “but I had to deal with the Senate and I had to deal within a cabinet and, when you are the party leader, as opposed to a backbencher, you are inevitably a little more constrained.”
This pusillanimous pugilist wants us to renege on an international agreement that he himself signed up to and why? So he can make it as hard as possible for Malcolm Turnbull and so he can attack Labor. The best interests of the country don’t get a look in.
Abbott told Hadley his government was the only government in recent history to lower power prices when it repealed Labor’s carbon price. He conveniently omits the fact that his government put up the price of everything, including power, by 10% when they introduced the GST, and that his Treasurer, Joe Hockey, wanted to increase it further to 15%.
For ten years, Tony Abbott has caused chaos in this country and business groups have had enough. Everybody – business leaders, climate groups, investors, state governments – have pleaded for the Finkel review to be adopted to halt the freeze on investment in energy that continuing uncertainty has imposed.
Turnbull and Frydenberg’s impotence in implementing the expert advice that everyone except Abbott and his small but vocal band of bastards agree must happen, indicates that they too are more interested in politics than good governance.
People who are prepared to lie, to break international agreements, to put the country in jeopardy from increasingly frequent and severe climate and weather events, to freeze investment because they can’t stick to their word, to put their political survival in front of the best interests of the country and the world, deserve our contempt.
Tell Tony Abbott to f*** off and get on with the job of transitioning to a carbon free future or face the condemnation of future generations for your incredible selfishness in passing on a burden to our children that you were too gutless to tackle.
So? What’s new?
The headline says it all. Sadly, Kaye, you are preaching to the choir. If you know of any way we can solve the “Abbott problem”, please tell us, because being continually outraged is exhausting and unproductive.
I get the impression you were a bit angry when you wrote this one, Kaye.
Good! Stay angry. We need everyone angry.
(BTW, I’m angry too). ?
Turnbull offers Queensland power station funding if it votes LNP in state poll, you mean this Climate believer, if only he was in a position to do something, I’m sure he would.
Well written Kaye…..
Abbott has 2, and only 2, objectives in life now….
1. Destroy the Turnbull Government; to which I am thankful for
2. Please the Bolt’s, Jones’s and Binardi’s of Australia, which frustrates the Hell out of me
Stay Angry please but only at Abbott and his clique – not us please lol.
Khaled
I have missed the real point about Tony Abbott for years. I’ve said he is stupid, he is. I’ve said he is a drunk, he is. I’ve said he is punch drunk, oh yes he is. But his main characteristic! He is absolutely and totally useless. He has no contribution to make to anything.
Abbott could make a huge contribution to Australia … by resigning from politics.
The coal-fired power station that Turnbull is offering to build in Queensland if the LNP get up in the state’s next election is, according to him :
a new advanced high-efficient low-emission power station
Can anybody clarify what the emissions from such a power station are likely to be ? Are the emissions less or the same as gasfired power ?
Isn’t it astonishing that a federal government who were pressuring and bribing the state governments into privatising their power generation and distribution – a policy that lost the LNP Newman government office in Queensland – are now talking government funding and operation of coal-fired power stations ?
Why aren’t the media asking these fundamental question of the PM ?
Terry2
The media asking ‘fundamental’ questions would shatter too many delusions.
Hadlee is as despicable. So are Xenophon, whoever edits the Telegraph and Turnbull, a cold blooded cynic.
Frydenberg, Rebecca Weisser, Chris Berg, Murdoch…so many amoral, rootless cynics,destined for the darker corners of Dante’s Inferno, should such a place exist.
Terry2,
“Even the best of the high-efficiency, low-emission plants emit far more carbon into the atmosphere than gas-fired power stations. The cost of retro-fitting Australia’s ageing coal-fired power stations as high-efficiency, low-emission power stations would be enormous — and the cost may fall on the taxpayer. Banks are wary of funding new coal-fired power plants at a time when pressure is mounting on lenders to shift away from fossil fuels.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-02/clean-coal-explained/8235210
MARTIN MOORE, CEO, CS ENERGY: It’s not game-changing. You’ve still got to think that ultra-super-critical produces twice the emissions of gas-fired technology.
HAYDEN COOPER: So would he, the CEO of a coal-powered generator, build one?
MARTIN MOORE: Well, I think CS Energy certainly has no intention of building any coal-fired power plants, ultra-centre super-critical or not.
And it would surprise me greatly if there was any more coal-fired technology was built in Australia.
I think when you look at the risk of the investment, you’re talking about $2 billion-plus investment up-front. These assets have a plant life of roughly 40 years, and so it’s a very, very big long-term bet.
So given the current uncertainty, I think it would be a very courageous board that would invest in coal-fired technology in Australia
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/no-new-coal-fired-power-plants-will-be-built-in/8278176
Decent articles
FactCheck Q&A: is coal still cheaper than renewables as an energy source?
“These projections for new supercritical coal power are higher than the recent prices for newly installed wind power (outlined earlier in the FactCheck) at around $60-70/MWh in current prices over the 20-year contract period (which is similar to a levelised cost)”
http://theconversation.com/factcheck-qanda-is-coal-still-cheaper-than-renewables-as-an-energy-source-81263
[Can anybody clarify what the emissions from such a power station are likely to be ? Are the emissions less or the same as gasfired power ?]
“ultra-supercritical coal stations are able to convert up to 45% of the gross energy of coal to electricity”
https://theconversation.com/is-clean-coal-power-the-answer-to-australias-emissions-targets-71785
yet about half the Australian population back this bitter, selfish suppository … it confounds my reasoning of common sense
He complains about ‘de industrialising the country’…when he and and Hockey basically told the car industry to shut up shop and f^&*k off! We are the largest economy in the world without a car industry….no one has de industrialised this country more than Abbott. His hypocrisy is breathtaking.
It was an arch-climate-change-denier named Minchin, operating from the senate, who – several years ago – engineered the removal of Turnbull as Liberal party leader and the accession of Abbott to that position. Everything relating to policy went downhill from that time onward. The party was always split on a range of issues relating to ecological sustainability, and was largely skeptical of the findings of research scientists around the world about climate change and the role of human activities in that phenomenon. The Liberal party in Australia exhibits much in common with the U.S. Republican party in this respect. Former PM Howard is on record as having admiration for the U.S, Republican party, notwithstanding that it spawned an erratic lunatic named Trump and that this party stands as the single biggest threat to world peace and to the achievement of an ecologically sustainable world.
Politicians can f#ck off as far as I am concerned. Get out of the way of the inevitable. Stop using us as pawns in your stupid games to secure nothing but your own jobs. I am sick of being lied to and held back by people who couldn’t give the slightest shit about our well-being.
Clean coal is not only crap it is totally the fossel economic / energy LIE it is is a piece of the fossil-fuel marketing spin repeated by the LNP ad nauseum .
Snowy 2 is also crap by using wait for it….. Coal snowy 2 IMO would emit added emissions via water evaporation of storage.
No one is ever going to build these plants except the LNP with taxpayer cash.
It’s obvious our representative Demoracy has some big flaws.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/15/peter-costellos-five-most-profligate-decisions-as-treasurer-cost-the-budget-56bn-a-year
Kaye – I totally agree with everything you say and everything you have said
I am also with Dr Soup – Its totally exhausting.
Progressives have to create and pursue a new campaign of “the common good (thanks John Lord).
I see that there are a number of people advocating the support of new progressive parties, but seriously the only thing that new progressive parties do is take votes away from the only real chance we have of getting rid of the LNP.
The fact is that whilst AIMN is a great media it really is only speaking to the converted. I get to read how lots of very articulate people are thinking like I do, but that is not getting out to the majority of the public who use Facebook, for news, and whilst I know that AIMN followers do publish articles on Facebook, we need to grab the attention of Facebook users, and profer a narrative that is not just the same old same old exhausting attack on the woeful LNP and turnbull or abbott or moroscum, or freidentwit etc.
Sorry I have been trying my best on Facebook but I am just not as articulate as you Kaye or Mr Lord, Michael, Joseph and the very clever Mr Rossliegh.
By all means keep writing for AIMN, but can you good folk work at something positive, short and sweet that articulates a progressive view of the current issues.
Thanks
S G B
[I see that there are a number of people advocating the support of new progressive parties, but seriously the only thing that new progressive parties do is take votes away from the only real chance we have of getting rid of the LNP]
Yep, I hate seeing a multiplicity of new progressive entities. It is self-defeating.
When it comes to politics all power is held in the hands of “those with the mostest” – either those groups with the most money or the most supporters or the most lobbying capabilities or the most outrageous lies.
There is too much organisational division in the left and it weakens them. They may join in protests but the pollies ignore that because there is no big powerful group behind it. We are sadly missing the collective social power that the unions once had.
Sorry
I meant as a Facebook article.
If writing here is only preaching to the choir, then why bother to write?
The articles have to start somewhere, so why not here?
It’s as good a place as any, in my humble opinion. Looking at the stats – and where the traffic to the articles come from – I’d say they are doing quite well.
Yes, Kaye Lee, they can all f#ck off, but before they go, I would to see them held to account, to be labelled and charged for what they are — f#cking traitors. This f#cking farce, this f#cking obscenity called government, populated by a vile bunch of spivs, shonks, liars, thieves and hypocrites needs to be terminated as soon as.
We have become a morally bankrupt nation, greed and hate rule, compassion left the room ages ago, but we permit this shit to happen — deceitful, lying media pond scum shock jocks, indefinite incarceration of refugees, oh and while we’re at it lets deny them necessary medical attention, continue to deny the reality of climate change. On and on goes the shit with a f#cking sock puppet fizza at the helm, an immigration minister that has given up the right to be called human let alone man, surrounded by a gang of f#cking vicious men and women,
, ideologically driven shit stains on humanity.
And this is our government. This is our nation. Really makes you proud to be Australian, eh?
What do we do beyond the excellent articles on this blog, beyond preaching to the converted, beyond this echo chamber?
My perception tell me we are in very deep shit, the time for action is upon us and really Australia deserves far better, we really cannot afford any more of these rancid f#ckwits pretending to be politicians. What the f#ck do we do? F#cked if I know. But I know I care.
Kaye Lee
“Politicians can f#ck off as far as I am concerned. Get out of the way of the inevitable.”
Just curious, what is “the inevitable.” -any timeframe?
nurses,
The inevitable – a move away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy is what I was meaning in that rant and the timeframe to start should be yesterday…. but I would add marriage equality, and, if they understand anything about how society works, greater equity in wealth sharing and active moves to reduce poverty and make quality relevant education accessible to all. I would also add, rather than cutting funding and sacking scientists, making research a priority along with investing in preventative health strategies.
On a timeframe for the best interests of the country to inform decision making, I hold out no hope that, with our current political system and those who occupy it, that common sense and honest cohesive policy will emerge any time soon (though Labor are streets ahead of the Coalition in making an attempt).
I just realised that the mad monks last name is actually an acronym:
A – A
B – Big
B – Bang
O – Over
T – Turncoat
T – Turnbull
“Tony Abbott is the most selfish, destructive politician Australia has ever endured.” Actually, both Abbott and Turnbull can be cast in the same light. Malcolm’s selfishness comes from his desperate need to remain leader and PM and this is destructive in the sense that he’s always sucking up to the big end of town and major donors and kowtowing to the politicians that helped him knife Abbott rather than keeping the country going. Indecision is very destructive and Malcolm is a master of indecision.
The leadership issue continues in the LNP. Wrecker Abbott is pushing hard against his LNP peers.
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/09/20/joyce-fires-shot-after-abbott-threatens-cross-floor-clean-energy-target
How ridiculous can this get….
“Tony Abbott indicated he could cross the floor if the Turnbull government goes ahead with a clean energy target.
Labor frontbencher Amanda Rishworth said Mr Abbott’s aim was to cause as much “chaos and trouble” as possible.
“The test is really for Malcolm Turnbull … will he stand up to these conservatives on his backbench and deliver what (Chief Scientist) Alan Finkel said is critical to the long-term reliability and affordability of energy and that is a clean energy target, or is he going to capitulate to a noisy few on the backbench?” Ms Rishworth said.
A Victorian branch of the party passed a resolution in August expressing concerns about Abbott’s destabilisation and called on the federal party to explore options to disendorse him as the candidate at the next election.”
This is Turnbull’s chance to embrace the clean energy target with the support of Labor and the Greens and leave Abbott sitting with Craig Kelly.
Preaching to the converted is important – it reinforces ones thlughts and chases away doubt.
What I am saying is that, can those with writing talent please use their talent on facebook as well as on AIMN. Facebook reaches a seriously big audience- there os no reason why that shprt and sweet should not point to the wider discussion on AIMN.
AIMN – I am not criticising AIMN, I look fwd every day to the articles ylu have some very clever people writing for you. Keep it up!
Thanks
SGB
This moronic failed politician rejected by his own party never ever once had a conventional relationship concerning truth or ethics –we shouldn’t be too surprised at the worrying content of the article –The populace of this island nation truly -deserve better than these mumbling moronic dunderheads
http://miriam-english.org/lj/coal_-_energy_of_the_future-256.png
This from 2 years ago. It has continued to worsen. I think 3 of those companies have gone bankrupt since.
Yeah, coal – energy of the future.
SGB,
I understand what you are saying. I like to back up what I write with evidence and links and quotes so it can stretch too long at times. I was turned off facebook after receiving threats and feel much safer and saner writing here.
This was one short piece I wrote in February 2014 after the unthinkable had happened and the Tony Abbott I went to uni with was now Prime Minister of my country.
Message in a bottle
February 10, 2014
Capitalist fundamentalists have taken over my country and are carrying out a jihad against anyone who earns less than $80,000.
They have enslaved our country and sent us all ‘down pit’.
They are eroding avenues for complaint or legal action.
They say they are advocates for free speech but they are in the process of silencing and capitalising the national broadcaster.
They are taking over our schools and preaching capitalist and militarist propaganda to our kids.
They are sending the poor and disabled to work in camps euphemistically named the Green Army.
They are airbrushing history by deleting speeches from the past.
They are bypassing democratically elected Members of Parliament and concentrating control to the Star Chamber.
The government is in thrall to the capitalist fundamentalists and have given them the power to make decrees.
Anyone who arrives in our country without a pass is being locked up in detention camps.
They discriminate against homosexuals, Muslims, the poor and the disabled.
They have brought in anti-association laws and are arresting people for no reason who are then locked in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day.
They are killing our marine creatures.
They are watching our country burn.
Please send help.
Three and a half-years later and a new PM and I am even more worried
Don’t give up / keep being angry / share AIMN articles widely over social media.
The progressives for the most part are Liberals in sheep’s clothing.
There are some good Independents out there.
Labor is our best bet at this juncture.
Abbott and his Team need to be voted out.
Keep hope alive for a better government, once, LNP are voted out
I agree with everything you have said in this article, Kaye Lee
While over 50% of our traffic comes from Facebook, I admit that most of those readers are from left-leaning sites. We do know if one of our articles is shared on a Facebook page that is right-wing (where it is hoped we can preach to the un-converted). How do we know? Well for starters, you can see some of the comments directed to the author – as was the case with John Lord, as shown in his post yesterday. And secondly, we are inundated with hate-mail.
The disease in Australian politics is increasing.
A presentation against the Adani mine at Federation Square in Melbourne was censored
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/sep/20/anti-adani-protest-censored-by-operators-of-melbournes-federation-square#comment-105481087
Tony just wants Mal’s job and he is showing that he will do whatever it is necessary to get it.
Michael Taylor September 20, 2017 at 4:59 pm
“And secondly, we are inundated with hate-mail.”
A clear indication of how many ignorant, uneducated, stupid, selfish and greedy people are out there.
“Abbott’s declaration means that it will be all but impossible to satisfy the hard right. That’s the whole point. Which offers Turnbull an opportunity, if he has the guts to take it: ignore Abbott, come up with a middle-ground policy, and broker an agreement with Labor. If Abbott actually crossed the floor against the government, that might be enough to sideline him forever.
Abbott and his cronies will keep pushing until either voters give up on Turnbull altogether, or he pushes back, precipitating a crisis.”
https://www.themonthly.com.au/today/sean-kelly/2017/20/2017/1505892074/crisis-hunting
This is Malcolm’s chance to be a leader and make Abbott irrelevant. Is he smart enough to seize it?
An unending source of mirth the Mad Monk. The latest antic being clean energy. What an actress.
Trained by Howard
I have a darwin site that has normal antilabor pro the rabbott workers. They love hanson for her honesty and the rabbott for his consistency my attempts to show hanson is an unthinking disingenuous ignorant bigot and demonstrate the vagaries of the rabbott are dismissed as leftwing hype.
The need to preserve our coal is not hard to show that we are excellent at giving away our resources and cpal could be worth swuillions by 2030.
Remember about a billion of us got rich on coal and oil. How do we propose the other 6000000000 get rich?
“It would be unconscionable – I underline that word – unconscionable for a government that was originally elected promising to abolish the carbon tax and to end Labor’s climate obsessions to go further down this renewable path” says our moronic ex-PM. It truly is time to slap this fool down.
Another little reminder that something could be amiss in the climate department.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-21/bom-forecasts-sydney-heatwave-with-36c-expected-on-saturday/8965442
johno, I recall we’ve just had the warmest winter on record, with bushfire warnings earlier than normal.
We should probably prepare for a scorcher summer.
I wish I was already in my underground house.
Tony Abbott: “Climate change is bullshit.” What a horrid, corrupt moron that guy is.
The so called interview on Sky’s Jones & Co with celebrity guest Tony Abbott has received a lot of media space but, interestingly the viewing audience for that program was a mere 50,000. At the same time on free to air, what Australians were actually watching was The Block with 1.80 million national viewers.
Australian’s are not really interested in Tony Abbott and his grab-bag of so called policies. Neither are they interested in the echo chamber rantings of Alan Jones and the simpering Peta Credlin.
Terry2, the names Abbott, Jones and Sky would be more than enough to deter me from even considering watching that program.
Miriam, every autumn I am grateful the house has not been burnt to the ground from bushfire. Fingers crossed for the coming summer. Going underground sounds like a very good idea.
Bye the Bye
My dog is on a clinical twelve month trial for a new oral tick and flea preventative treatment : seems to be working for him but I ended up getting a paralysis tick yesterday – must speak to the vet about being included in the trial !
Tony the wrecker does not care about anybody or any constructive cause. Today his remaining reason for being in parliament is an obsessive preoccupation with obtaining revenge, by destroying his nemesis Malcolm — by whatever it takes. This objective is a delusion however, because Tony’s influence within the party has been diminishing over time. And Malcolm is quite capable of destroying himself without any assistance from Tony or anyone else.
Seriously consider supporting/joining The Greens and find a tribe who actually wants what you want. Make politics work for the common good.
Kaye Lee only person full of hatred here is you. Kaye how much do you love your a.l.p and the greens?. What has a Tony Abbott ever done that suggest he is full of hate. Narelle your lefty greens believe in this non existent global warming crap, look on the Internet the icing in the North Pole has gotten bigger not smaller. How is arguing for something like coal, mean that someone is hatefull?. God to south Australia where they have these silly solar and wind rubbish they have the highest electricity prices in the world, according to a email I got from stop these things, coal powered France pays 23 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity while South Australia pays 47 cents per kilowatt hour, but Kaye you may hail Jay Weatherall as a hero for putting in solar and wind crap that a report said was to blame for the day South Australia and NSW had a state wide blackout. If this website is independent, then Christopher Walken must be the U.S Masters champion. Is there any columnist here who critics the a.l.p aswell as the greens, LNP, One Nation, etc?. I doubt any lefty’s here have a argument and only have abuse.
Of FFS, not another one! ?
Yeah, nah
Wayne, I guess you’ve recently come here from another planet. As such you can be excused for not knowing about Tony Abbott’s antipathy to gays.
As for the ice at the Arctic getting bigger… deluded, much? Have another look Wayne. For a long time the Antarctic was resisting the melt of its northern sister, but it too is now melting at a greater rate than expected.
Perhaps you might like to actually read Kaye’s article here about what has happened to electricity prices in Australia. South Australia has opted for massive investment in renewable energy because prices have got so out of control. Give it a few years and let’s see how their experiment goes, shall we? I expect they will see their prices drop to more sensible values and other states relying on coal will continue to see prices grow ever higher. The exception might be Queensland, where enormous numbers of people are opting for solar photovoltaic panels to cut their spiralling electricity bills — those bills coming from fossil power.
The blackout in South Australia wasn’t due to windpower. That was a lie propagated by your oh-so-trustworthy LNP fellows. The heavy winds blew over power distribution pylons. If they’d been powered entirely by coal they would have still had exactly the same blackouts.
There are plenty of people here who criticise Labor (I do quite regularly), and quite a few here criticise the Greens. Because this site really is genuinely independent, people are generally are not straitjacketed by an ideological mindset, though as you show by your delusional comments, that’s not always the case.
Wayne, here is a record of the Arctic ice that you might find interesting:
Published on 28 Oct 2016
Arctic sea ice has not only been shrinking in surface area in recent years, it’s becoming younger and thinner as well. In this animation, where the ice cover almost looks gelatinous as it pulses through the seasons, cryospheric scientist Dr. Walt Meier of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center describes how the sea ice has undergone fundamental changes during the era of satellite measurements.
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Jefferson Beck
This is the one that I visit almost daily. The Antarctic popup confirms, for now, what Miriam English has said.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
If Abbott were to cross the floor, where does he think he’s going to go – it will be to block a Bipartisan piece if legislation, one option is to go and join Cory Bernardi, then they could both go and be completely effing irrelevant together – that would be a lovely Bromance, but, of course, not in a gay kinda way