As Tony Abbott’s scare campaign rolled into the Illawarra today, the Leader of the Opposition managed to make three significant mistakes in a matter of minutes.

1. Mr Abbott still thinks his Direct Action fraud would be a cheaper and more efficient than a carbon price in tackling climate change:

"I think it’s reasonable to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and you can do it much more cheaply and with much less economic damage by going to the market and directly purchasing emissions, rather than whacking a great big new tax on our cost of living and on jobs."   TONY ABBOTT, ABC ILLAWARRA – 16 MARCH 2011

The fact is Tony Abbott’s Direct Action policy will cost $30 billion. Taxpayers rather than polluters pay to cut pollution. There will be no investment certainty provided to industry. And households will not receive any assistance to cope with cost of living rises – instead they will be slugged an extra $720 at tax time.

2. Mr Abbott doesn’t understand former PM John Howard’s emissions trading policy:

"You know, the big thing about John Howard’s ETS was that it wasn’t going to happen unless the rest of the world did the same thing."   TONY ABBOTT, ABC ILLAWARRA – 16 MARCH 2011

The Howard Government intended to introduce an emissions trading system in 2012. At the time, John Howard wrote that his policy "will ensure Australia leads the world in our domestic approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions". (Foreword, Australia’s Climate Change Policy, July 2007)

3. Mr Abbott changed positions on climate change science in just three sentences:

HOST: So, where is your own mind as far as the climate change science is concerned and what we need to do about it?

ABBOTT: Well, what I said about 18 months or so back was that the so-called settled science of climate change isn’t always quite what it’s claimed to be.

Nevertheless, as I’ve said repeatedly, it’s important to tack prudent precautions against credible threats. Climate change is real. Mankind does make a contribution.   TONY ABBOTT – ABC ILLAWARRA – 16 MARCH 2011

While Tony Abbott called himself a ‘weathervane’ when it comes to climate change, this must be some sort of record – 2 positions on climate change in 3 sentences.

This comes after the community forum in Perth on Monday where he claimed that the science of climate change was not settled.

The question that needs to be asked is which Tony Abbott is telling the truth - the one who occasionally says he believes in climate change - or the one who keeps saying the science isn't settled and humans aren't causing global warming?

Tony Abbott, by his own account, has never been one for political honesty. But as his mobile scare campaign rolls around Australia, he’s either deliberately deceiving the Australian people, or so confused about his own policy, his own history and his own beliefs to make error after error.

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