The most signficant policy point Tony Abbott is capable of making is that Julia Gillard lied. Wow, a politician turned out to be wrong on a pre-election promise! The sky must be falling right now! Mr Tony Abbot thus manages to ignore every good reason for Australia to have a carbon tax.

All political campaigns are based on lies, none more so than those of the Liberal Party. The Liberal party anti-carbon tax strategy is to lie, deny, twist and ignore every important fact about our climate and energy predicament. These are huge lies by omission. The number of climate change denialists in the Liberal Party must be a majority, otherwise they would not be having their silly none-direct action policy. Their are a few named climate denialists in the Labor Party as well, notably the Minerals and Energy minister, Mr Martin Ferguson. Its one of the mining corporation approved qualifications for the job. In a similar manner, pre-selection for Liberals involves a rigorous exclusion of understanding of environmental theory and any form of altruism beyond practical self interest.

When Tony Abbott says the carbon tax is based on a lie, he intends a double meaning. The biggest is a code meaning for climate denialists. Tony believes that Climate Change is a lie. He has called the science crap, and scientists by implication crappers. The second and least important is that Julia Gillard made a pre-election lie, which is a bit astonishing, because Labor planned to win power outright and not have to deal with independents and greens or carbon tax. I thought Labor lost votes by denying a carbon tax. They definitely lost my interest. We can only speculate that there would have been definitely no carbon tax debate in this term of government had history been different.

In this time of having reached the limits of economic growth, of oil depletion, overpopulation, oil and resource wars, and financial system chicanery and instability, their are positive advantages to a carbon tax. Has the Liberal Party been able to disprove any one of them?

Investment in clean energy is an economic stimulus, a supposed godsend during global recession. It is investment in the only possible sustainable supply of energy compatible with long term environmental rescue. It can rescue us from oil dependence as peak oil declines. It can provide jobs, and boost Australian technology skills and grow a reduced carbon emission manufacturing industry. The number of jobs lost from coal mining is small compared to those gained from a comprehensive renewable energy investment plan such as that from Beyond Zero Emissions.

Why does the Liberal Party not want people to know this? Because mining companies count their dollars and not our costs.  Because Federal and State governments only get a limited income and royalties from all that stuff dug out of Australia and sent overseas.  Because total employment in the mining industry is of the order of 1-2% of working population, it is the rest of the taxpayer base of Australia that funds mining infrastructure. Mining is heavily mechanised, and is dependent on electricy and oil for its energy.  Mining industry would benefit itself in an age of oil depletion from having renewable energy sourced electricity.  Coal mining gets billions of taxpayer dollars in subsidy for Diesel fuel. That money flows straight into mining profits because it is their cost reduction and our cost.

Investment in renewable energy and a carbon tax would naturally be a corresponding reduction in investment of government dollars in the mining industry infrastructure, and a reduction in profits. A carbon tax on coal and gas hurts the profits of foreign corporations and the Liberal Party supporters in the mining game. The ALP cannot call Mr Abbotts game plan out loud, because they too are heavily under the influence of mining interests.