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Tony Abbott has proven himself of late to be no more than an old guard of the previous Howard administration…the focus of his political approach has been on the nuclear family, fear-mongering/dog whistle politics, slashing debt at any cost, supporting mining corporations, trickily undermining the progress of real climate change legislation …and in demonstrating a determination to turn the clock back on IR (industrial relations) reforms to benefit the bosses at the expense of the worker.
I thought the following quotes from a Lateline interview with Barrie Cassidy in 2001 might provide further insight into the “real” Tony Abbott…rather than the occasional “phony” compassionate conservative we get these days:
BARRIE CASSIDY: What will be the top priority in terms of further industrial relations reform?
TONY ABBOTT: The top priority will be to once more attempt to take the unfair dismissal monkey off the back of small business, to eliminate the possibility of a $500 a year union tax on 6 million non-union members, and to try to ensure that it's impossible to take protected strike action without a secret ballot first. So they're the three priorities that we'll be proceeding with very urgently once Parliament goes back.
TONY ABBOTT: I've always had the view that it's better to take what you can get and come back for more later but the challenge for the ALP will be to give us anything at all and in the last Parliament it was almost impossible to get any progress whatsoever out of the ALP on industrial relations.
BARRIE CASSIDY: A week ago when your name was mentioned as a possible leader of Government business in the house you said that there were a lot more talented people around for the job. Why were they overlooked?
TONY ABBOTT: I guess Phillip Ruddock, for instance, has a very big portfolio. Alexander Downer - he's perhaps out of the country too much. I think I've got a big challenge here and just at the moment I'm very conscious of just how big a challenge it is. But I'll do my best to meet the challenge.
BARRIE CASSIDY: In yesterday's 'Sydney Morning Herald' Michelle Grattan wrote that replacing Peter Reith with Tony Abbott is simply replacing one bother boy with another.
TONY ABBOTT: Peter Reith certainly was a very tough minister. He knew what he was doing and he did it well. If I can be like Peter Reith in that respect I'll be very happy.
I Haven't failed to notice that Phillip Ruddock & Alexander Downer have crept back out of the shadows to eagerly support Tony Abbott on his latest “dog barking” policy announcements on refugees.
Plus ca change, plus ce la meme chose….The more things change, the more they stay the same.
N’ 
Last Updated (Friday, 28 May 2010 10:36)
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I do not know if I am reading too much into it, but it seems to me that there has been a subtle shift in the position of those who deny AGW. I was reading Dr Roy Spencer's blog a few days ago, he is the one that produces the graphs that Andrew Bolt used to show. His latest post seems to indicate a shift from that there is no global warming to a position of that the models might not be completely correct. I must disagree with my good friend Dick Lindzen’s recent point he made during his keynote speech at the 4th ICCC meeting in Chicago, in which he asserted that the IPCC’s global warming hypothesis is not even plausible. I think it is plausible. So now he seems to think that AGW is pausible! That made me sit up and think that it was a change in his position. I may be wrong. The second is that Abbott now thinks that man is contributing to global warming. I am confident, based on the science we have, that mankind does make a difference to climate, almost certainly the impact of humans on the planet extends to climate. So AGW is not "crap" anymore eh? I wonder if their changes have anything to do with the latest temperature readings - the same readings that they used to generate their graphs that proved that AGW was bunkum. I will get the latest graph up later (cannot do it from these Windoze laptops). The inconvenient truth for the deniers is that the planet will continue to warm as a result of CO2E. I know I have a thread on the coalitions policy on refugees, but I think we need a thread dedicated to show how bad refugees are for Australia. Mr Lowy’s fortune rose by $840 million to $5.04 billion, taking him to the top of the list for the first time after several years at number two, BRW reported yesterday. Frank Lowy comes from a family of refugees. In 2000, BRW detailed that five of the top eight billionaires in Australia were from refugee families. Refugees are just so bad for Australia! Send them home. Last Updated (Thursday, 27 May 2010 12:56) How many times do we need to say it? There is no tsunami of boat arrivals. And yet Abbott continues to make out that there is. From news.com.au: Releasing further detail of the Opposition's immigration policy today, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said the Coalition would immediately look at setting up processing camps in other countries. By using words like "tsunami" and "illegals" the coalition is pandering to those who fear that we are being overrun. We are not being overrun. Refugees, as I have posted about in previous threads, are an asset to Australia. Let us not forget that most asylum seekers arrive on big metal tubes! My latest Th!nk3: Developing World post:
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