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Today’s interview by Andrew Bolt with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd confirmed the lack of substance of the latter in dealing with major policy issues. Thanks to Bolt’s preparedness to intervene (quite a contrast with ABC interviewers of ministers) Rudd also failed in his attempt to talk his way through the interview.

On boat refugees, Rudd told us to wait and see if his PNG policy stops the boats and rejected any idea of naval action to do so.

On climate change, he made several comments suggesting a lack of understanding of his own policy and of the policies and attitudes of overseas countries:

• The resort to adopting the European carbon price for Australia does not mean it involves the “market solution” suggested by Rudd. The price (it is basically a tax) will be determined primarily by the extent to which European businesses are allowed to emit by the European Union governments. Hence it is incorrect to suggest that “we will adjust (the price) accordingly over time”. Adjustments will not be made by Australia.
• It is wrong to say that the IPCC “contains within it” 4,000 scientists: it does not employ scientists. Rather, under the chairmanship of an Indian who is not a climate scientist and who has acknowledged responsibility for a major error in the IPCC 2007 report, it services working groups  whose willing lead authors assemble reports by drawing on advice from a range of scientists. Most of these scientists are warmists. The reports are finalised at meetings where government representatives play a dominant role.
• Note that Rudd refers to the “International Panel of Climate Change”. This omits the important fact that the panel is a government one – hence the “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change”.
• Rudd rejects the estimate by one IPCC lead author that global temperatures would rise by 2100 by only 0.004C of a degree but refuses to provide his estimate. The reason? While acknowledging that Australia contributes only a small proportion of global emissions, Rudd implicitly accepts that the outcome will depend on whether other countries “work in partnership”. But Rudd should have learned from his experience at the Copenhagen conference that there is minimal likelihood of any international agreement. Countries with relatively low average incomes now contribute over 60 per cent of emissions and are likely to continue being major users of fossil fuels.
• Rudd claims the CSIRO supports taking action (to reduce emissions) because failure to do so will “see an increase in extreme weather events and ... an increase in drought events” in certain parts of Australia. Leaving aside analytical errors in this area made  by CSIRO and it’s now obvious warmist bias, Rudd seems unaware of the IPCC report playing down the risk of extreme weather events and giving increased weight to the pursuit of adaptive policies.

Rudd adopted a strategy in the interview of arguing that policies have had to be changed because “the world has changed”. But he fails to recognise that the change in our refugee world reflects disastrous policy changes under the Labor government or that the failure of predicted changes in the climate world requires changes (reversals) in emission reduction policies.  

Des Moore  

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