Winds of change blow hot as Abbott huffs and puffs and blows his principles down

Roger Clifton writes: We can thank Tony Abbott for telling us how we look to our detractors (“Tony Abbott’s 25 consistent, unflinching core beliefs on climate change”): “Primitive people once killed goats to appease the volcano gods.” It will remain hard to persuade Australia’s conservatives to decarbonise while we are obviously under the delusion that we can be rescued by putting prayer wheels on the hilltops and holy panels on our roofs.

Len Keating writes: Abbott has mastered two political talents (if they may be called such) in his lengthy public life: denigrating the achievements of better people, and sucking up. His most recent address, delivered to a gathering of forgettable right-wing gargoyles, made greatest use of the second of these talents.

It is ridiculously easy to predict what Abbott will say on climate change — or indeed on any topic — simply by asking yourself: “What does the audience most want to hear?” “Audience” in this sense does not mean the broad majority of the electorate, or the vast mass of those who consider themselves everyday Australians, or even those who would be expected to hear his speech second-hand or read a transcript of it. “Audience” means those 100 or so people in the room right now, listening to Abbott as he delivers his address. He will talk to those people as if every other public utterance in his life had never been made.

He will not be even slightly embarrassed if someone records his speech and contrasts it with comments he made earlier arguing the exact opposite. Abbott is not talking to these people to change their minds, and they are not there to find fault with what he is saying — and he knows it. He is there to offer them the comfort that someone who once held high office ennobles their prejudices by sharing them. He is there to let them know that obstinance and wishful thinking are perfectly valid substitutes for empirical data when choosing what to believe. 

I previously assumed that Abbott did this sort of thing in pursuit of the maximum short-term political advantage (as he saw it). But that would fail to explain why he’s still doing it, having been thrown out of politics after his short, comically cringeworthy tenure as PM. I now assume he does it for the money — and the validation. That is, after all, what sucking up is all about.

Alan Harrington writes: Who cares what Abbott thinks about climate change? He actually believes there is such a thing as a god, and hence is plainly delusional. He has no relevant knowledge, and defective reasoning power. His views are completely irrelevant, and should simply be ignored, and not reported on. Except, of course, as in an article such as this one by Charlie Lewis, which documents Tony Abbott, Rhodes scholar, hypocritical liar, in all his ludicrous idiocy.

Peter Barry writes: Abbott is a firm believer in modern science, particularly quantum physics, where the existence of a superposition of states is possible. Hence, climate change is and is not happening; the weather is variable, but the climate is eternally equable; but if the climate is changing, any such change can only be beneficial.

With a brain so well developed, with insights so profound, how could he be other than the environmental messiah we have all been waiting for? He will get an ever-quicker tan, but his budgies appear to be thoroughly smuggled. 

John Shortridge writes: Abbott has clearly said all he can say about climate change (even though your collection of statements suggests that they basically cancel each other out). He could now usefully turn his support from big fossil fuel to big tobacco, applying Abbottian logic to taking on the tobacco-is-bad-for-you cult. After all, the ancient Greeks and Romans knew about lung cancer, whereas tobacco didn’t arrive in Europe until the 17th century, so how can these things possibly be related?

As a super-fit 60-something he should have years to work on this, and similar issues, and we must all hope that he lives long enough to apologise to his grandchildren.

Paul Begley writes: As a postscript to Charlie Lewis’ article, there is Peta Credlin’s 2017 admission: “It wasn’t a carbon tax, as you know. It was many other things in nomenclature terms but we made it a carbon tax. We made it a fight about the hip pocket and not about the environment. That was brutal retail politics, and it took Abbott six months to cut through and when he did cut through Gillard was gone.” 

Credlin knew then that “flooding the zone with shit” created a level of confusion that worked in Abbott’s favour. When people in high office agree to contradict what is before our eyes and ears, and are given a platform via the legacy media to make ridiculous claims, the media that report them destroy their own authority. It’s not so much a question of shooting the messengers; the messengers shoot themselves.

The authority of the legacy media, with special mention of the ABC, relies not on witless reporting of both sides but on exercising the core journalistic skills of scepticism and analysis, and taking seriously their traditional function as gatekeeper. 

That is now a lost cause and the result is a widespread cloud of confusion, from which emerged Donald Trump and Boris Johnson in the US and Britain, and in Australia John Howard and his acolytes Abbott and Scott Morrison.