With just 21 days left to unveil a climate change policy, the Liberal Party continues to mislead the Australian people and get the facts wrong.

Liberal front benchers Greg Hunt and Bronwyn Bishop today repeated a range of climate change clangers.

In an interview on Sky News, Mr Hunt said the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme would cost families $1100 per year.  Ms Bishop said the same thing in an opinion piece on The Punch today.

This figure is just plain wrong – it is almost double the actual impact and completely ignores the comprehensive cash assistance the Government will provide to 9 out of 10 Australian households.

Treasury modelling found the Government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme would cause prices to rise by 1.1 per cent in 2013 – on average costing a household $624 a year.

Under the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, a total of 90 per cent of all households will receive assistance and on average these households will receive around $660 of assistance in 2013.

Ms Bishop also said this cash assistance for Australian households would be transitional, not permanent. Again, this is just wrong.

The assistance is permanent – in fact over the next ten years, on average more than 50 per cent of the revenue raised from the Scheme each year will go to households. The assistance will also be increased to reflect increases in the price of carbon.

Mr Abbott and other Liberals have made these same deliberate mistakes in the past. These mistakes prove you just can’t trust the Liberal Party on climate change.

Despite being informed of the facts, they remain more interested in running a scare campaign based on incorrect information than coming up with a climate change policy of their own.

On radio yesterday, Mr Abbott again repeated his view that the science of climate change is far from settled:

“The so-called settled science of climate change is not nearly as settled as the climate catastrophists would have us believe’’ - Tony Abbott – 2GB radio – 11 January 2010

This is despite the rigorous scientific findings set out in the Bureau of Meteorology’s 2009 Annual Climate Statement released last week which confirms:

• In the last 6 months of 2009 South Australia, Victoria and NSW all experienced their hottest July to December period on record.
• 2009 was the second hottest year in Australia on record and finished off the hottest decade in Australian history.
• 2009 is expected to be the fifth hottest year globally and finished off the hottest decade globally in recorded history.
• A cooler-than-average global mean temperature has now not been recorded since 1985.

Mr Abbott has indicated he will provide a detailed and fully costed climate change policy by the time Parliament resumes in February.

This is just 21 days away and yet Mr Abbott can’t even accept that climate change is real.