Mr Speaker, I hereby move that question time now be renamed Cut & Paste

The Prime Minister makes a bid to be guest editor of this column by trawling the archives

In parliament yesterday, Julia Gillard quotes Tony Abbott in The Age on April 10 last year:

I don't think my assessment of the science or of the policies ever changed that much. I think all that really changed was my assessment of the politics of the issue. The other thing is, when you're a senior member of the party whose leader has committed to an emissions trading scheme, you've got to find reasons to be sympathetic to an emissions trading scheme. But if that changes, obviously you are in a different position.

The PM quotes Treasury's document prepared for incoming government last year:

Direct action measures alone cannot do the job without imposing significant economic and budget costs. In the long term, if global carbon pollution emissions are not reduced, the risks to our economy, country and way of life are too great. Both Nicholas Stern and Ross Garnaut have made it clear that the costs of this transition will be much greater if we don't start now.

The PM quotes Abbott on ABC1's 7.30 Report, May 17 last year:

I know politicians are gonna be judged on everything they say, but sometimes, in the heat of discussion, you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark, which is one of the reasons why the statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth is those carefully prepared scripted remarks.

The PM doesn't quote herself in parliament on April 19, 2005:

I think the public is often cynical about what politicians say and they expect them to use a bit of spin, to use weasel words to talk in shades of grey, but I think the public still gets shocked when they see someone like minister Abbott give a iron-clad, rock-solid guarantee and it is such a blatant lie. There are no shades of grey in that, no spin. I think that shocked the public and certainly justifies his resignation.

She leaves it to Abbott to quote her words in parliament on May 10, 2005:

The Labor Party is the party of truth telling. When we go out into the electorate and make promises, do you know what we would do in government: we would keep them. When we say them, we mean them. That is the difference between you and us. If I were minister in an elected government, it would be my duty to implement lock, stock and barrel--word for word--exactly what we had promised in the election campaign. If [Tony Abbott] had been a businessman and offered a promise like that and not kept it, he would have been sued. If the minister had been in a court of law and made a statement like that and it turned out not to be true, he would have been tried for perjury. If the minister had been in a church and made a statement like that and it turned out not to be true, the congregation would have known that he had broken the ninth commandment.

Gillard, May 26, 2005:

We know that they will say anything before an election and do the complete reverse afterwards..

Joe Hockey resurrects this quote from Wayne Swan on Meet the Press, Channel 10, August 15 last year:

Well, certainly what we rejected is this hysterical allegation that somehow we are moving towards a carbon tax from the Liberals in their advertising. We reject that. What we have said [is] we will go back and seek to reconstruct a community consensus about how we deal with climate change.

More vintage Swan on ABC1's 7.30 Report, August 12 last year:

Swan: We've made our position absolutely clear. I know they're running a scare campaign that a carbon tax is coming. The Prime Minister has made it very clear that we are going to go out and achieve community consensus, which was fractured by Mr Hockey and the Liberals when they voted down the ETS.

Hockey: What was that? Was that yes or no?

Swan: We have made our position very clear. We have ruled it out.

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