Craig Kelly refuses to rule out Abbott comeback

“Never say never” to an Abbott comeback, says Liberal MP Craig Kelly as he backs Abbott’s climate change comments.

Liberal MP Craig Kelly has refused to rule out a return from Tony Abbott as he backs the former Prime Minister’s comments regarding climate change. Picture: Britta Campion / The Australian.

Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly has refused to rule out a Tony Abbott comeback, defending a speech from Mr Abbott doubling down on his climate scepticism, and saying there’s nothing Australians can do to change the climate.

In a speech delivered early today Australian time, the former prime minister told London climate sceptic group the Global Warming Policy Foundation to “Beware the pronouncement, ‘the science is settled’,” on climate change.

Mr Abbott also proudly quoted his own 2009 declaration that climate change was “absolute crap”, and likened the economic harm from climate-change policies to “primitive people once killing goats to appease the volcano gods”.

Mr Kelly said Mr Abbott was right.

“The point that Tony makes is 100 per cent correct, and the Chief Scientist has actually confirmed this,” he told Sky News.

“The Chief Scientist has said, ‘no matter what we do here in Australia with our emissions, it’s not going to change the weather, it’s not going to change the temperature of the globe, it’s not going to prevent bad storms’.”

Mr Kelly was asked whether he thought Mr Abbott could return to the leadership, and initially said he did not see the Prime Minister going anywhere.

“I don’t think Malcolm’s going anywhere. Malcolm’s going to lead our country into the next election and we are going to emphasise the difference in policy between the Coalition and the Labor Party,” he said.

Pressed again on whether Mr Abbott was ‘dead, buried and cremated’ as a future Liberal leader, or ‘Lazarus with a triple bypass’, Mr Kelly said: “You know in politics above all professions you can never, ever, never say never. That’s a rule that we’ve learnt over many, many years.”

Abbott’s ‘idiocy Trump-like’

Earlier former British Labour leader Ed Miliband likened Mr Abbott to Donald Trump.

Mr Miliband and Canadian Environment Minister Catherine McKenna were among those who hit out at Mr Abbott.

“I know Donald Trump has lowered the bar for idiocy but ...”, Mr Miliband tweeted alongside a Guardian article about Mr Abbott’s comments.

I know Donald Trump has lowered the bar for idiocy but..... https://t.co/LAYOKJfxFF

— Ed Miliband (@Ed_Miliband) October 9, 2017

Ms McKenna said Mr Abbott was “wrong and irresponsible”, tweeting: “Climate change is real & man-made. Not only do we owe it to our kids to act, clean growth is a trillion dollar opportunity.”

Wrong & irresponsible. Climate change is real & man-made. Not only do we owe it to our kids to act, clean growth is trillion $ opportunity. https://t.co/BnZ1o7oktw

— Catherine McKenna (@cathmckenna) October 9, 2017

Abbott ‘just nuts’

Labor deputy leader Tanya Plibersek said Mr Abbott had “left the realm of the merely destructive and entered the realm of the loopy.”

“This is actually just weird stuff from the former prime minister,” Ms Plibersek said.

“I’ve been to countries like Kiribati where people’s homes that used to be on dry land are now literally washed into the ocean. You can see the foundations out to sea.

“We know that climate change is having an effect in Australia as well, and to be denying it in this way just seems so very bloody-minded, and so intellectually inconsistent.”

Ms Plibersek also singled out Mr Abbott’s comment that more people die in cold snaps that heatwaves and a gradual increase in global temperatures “might even be beneficial”.

“He says climate change is not happening but if it is happening it’s actually a good thing. I mean it’s just nuts,” Ms Plibersek said.

.@tanya_plibersek: @TurnbullMalcolm has given up on climate change to vacate the field to the loopy former PM. MORE: https://t.co/mUjwQFKXTE pic.twitter.com/rqF0vy4udO

— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) October 9, 2017

Abbott’s consistency on climate policy ‘a question for him’

Mr Abbott’s factional ally, Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar said the issue of whether Mr Abbott’s speech was consistent with his actions as prime minister was a question for Mr Abbott.

It was Mr Abbott who signed Australia up to the Paris agreement of a 26 to 28 per cent reduction on 2005 emission levels by 2030.

“I haven’t seen the speech or read the speech,” Mr Sukkar said.

“My view doesn’t change on this issue. In the end I think there’s broad acceptance for our quite ambitious carbon emission reductions that we agreed in Paris, and I think if I go back five or ten years by any measure of what people were expecting out of the Australian government they are very ambitious carbon reduction targets, but in order to ensure that we could meet those, in order to ensure that we have the relative consensus necessary to be able to do that, we do need to deliver affordable and secure electricity.

.@MichaelSukkarMP: The reality is no one listens to Labor on energy because of what we have seen in SA. MORE https://t.co/mUjwQFKXTE pic.twitter.com/BmTbtFJqw2

— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) October 9, 2017

‘Clear who’s calling climate shots’

Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen said Mr Abbott’s speech, coupled with Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg’s indication yesterday that the Turnbull government is backing away from a clean energy target — shows the former prime minister is “calling the shots” on energy policy.

Mr Abbott’s comments come after Mr Frydenberg yesterday hinted that Chief Scientist Alan Finkel’s recommendation of a clean energy target would be dropped, amid mounting pressure within the Coalition party room.

At the same energy summit in Sydney yesterday, Dr Finkel said the target would remain a useful tool, “even if there was an extreme rate of reduction of the price of new technologies”, while Opposition Leader Bill Shorten stuck with Labor’s 50 per cent renewable energy target, telling Malcolm Turnbull he could either work with Labor on a clean energy target or lock in higher power prices.

Mr Bowen said Mr Frydenberg’s indication that the falling cost of renewables negated the need for a clean energy target was an “excuse for a catastrophic policy failure”.

“What this represents is a catastrophic failure by Malcolm Turnbull to stand up to the climate change deniers in his party and his inability to stop Tony Abbott and the likes of Craig Kelly calling the shots,” Mr Bowen said.

“It’s 2017 and we’ve got a former prime minister overseas denying the science of climate change, and more importantly than that, I mean he can say what he likes, he’s calling the shots on the policy of Australia.

“He is an effective handbrake on the elected Prime Minister, stopping any sensible policy progress when it comes to climate change and energy.”

Mr Bowen said the government was foregoing a rare opportunity to follow the advice of its own chief scientist and work with Labor on a clean energy target.

“We didn’t commission Alan Finkel. We didn’t ask him to do this work. Malcolm Turnbull did,” Mr Bowen said.

“Alan Finkel has delivered a very good report which says here’s a way forward.

“We say, well we don’t think it’s perfect, it’s not everything we’d like, but hey, it’s the best chance going, let’s sit down and finally let’s be adults, Labor and Liberal working together. “We’ve got this remarkable circumstance with the opposition of the day willing to be bipartisan but the government can’t reach an internal partisan position.

“We can’t negotiate with a puff of smoke. We need the government to have a position so that we can reach that policy certainty. We don’t have that because frankly Malcolm Turnbull is just not up to it.”