Tony Abbott's past as a climate change "weather vane" has come back to haunt him - again.
The Opposition Leader has been shown spruiking a carbon tax in an old interview that was aired on Q&A on ABC Television yesterday.
"If you want to put a price on carbon, why not just do it with a simple tax?" Mr Abbott argues.
"Why not ask electricity consumers to pay more, then at the end of the year you can take your invoices to the Tax Office and get a rebate?
"It would be burdensome - all taxes are burdensome - but it would certainly ... raise the price of carbon without increasing in any way the overall tax burden."
The interview was filmed in 2009, the same year "weather vane" Mr Abbott reneged on his support for an emissions trading scheme, which ultimately cost his predecessor, Malcolm Turnbull, his job.
Opposition frontbencher Christopher Pyne, who was on the Q&A panel, dismissed the video as nothing special and said he had already seen it.
"Tony Abbott wasn't actually arguing in favour of a carbon tax, he was talking about all the options that were available," he said, as he once again backed the Coalition's direct action plan.
The government, on the other hand, was delighted by the old footage.
"I haven't seen that video [before], but I enjoyed it, I must say," Health Minister Nicola Roxon, also on the panel, said.
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There's a much more complete version of the Tony Abbott interview available here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoCKhNr8Atk
Christopher Pyne's statement that Tony Abbott "was talking about all the options that were available" doesn't add up in the context of the longer video.
Tony Abbott goes from criticising the ETS straight into his "If you want to put a price on carbon" spiel.
He wasn't putting forward alternate solutions as Pyne has claimed - there were no other "alternate" solutions offered.
Just this one.
BTW - the full video of the interview is available here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5QXblcJAr4