It’s not often that I’ll give miscreants like Bolt any virtual oxygen on this blog, but I can’t let this one pass.
I listened to the interview in question this morning, on ABC Radio National Breakfast where Fran Kelly did her thing with Combet. Far from pandering to any side of a question, Kelly is a good interviewer, asking the questions people want to hear asked. The Boltisms in his blog do neither he nor what passes for his case any credit. Labeling Kelly a ‘warmist’ immediately tells me that he has nothing to offer but ad hominem for a start. But at least he has the gonads to link to the ABC broadcast. However, he then goes on to ‘tell’ those of his acolytes he knows won’t bother to go listen to the interview, what was said. This is a gross dishonesty because there is no transcript of that interview.
Then to further exacerbate the dishonesty, he puts his words into Greg Combet’s mouth. Then he goes on to make a selective quote from a much longer speech by Gillard, which stated this in addition to what he claims.
“I was concerned that if you were going to do something as big to your economy as put a price on carbon, with the economic transformation that implies, with changing the way in which we live, you need a lasting and deep community consensus to do it. And I don’t believe we have that lasting and deep community consensus now. Now, I believe we should have a price on carbon, and I will be prepared to argue for a price on carbon . . . so that we get to that lasting and deep community consensus, but we are not there yet.”
That was June 28, 2010, and Bolt even links to it, knowing that his troop of flying monkey’s won’t investigate the link, nor draw the conclusions that his cut_and_paste isn’t the be-all & end-all. He deliberately avoids the political reality of the hostile Senate and the futility of attempting to put through the ETS at that time. Gillard stated there & then that pricing carbon was on the agenda. Pricing carbon as never been off the agenda. The legislative push was simply withdrawn until a more opportune time, and that time is now, post re-election, with 30 months until the next one. That’s the political reality. A reality that NO CONSERVATIVE APOLOGIST has the integrity to grasp. That nettle clearly stings them too much.