Turnbull: Honesty Is The Best Policy (when it comes to debating climate)

The SMH reports that Malcom Turnbull is taking a few discreet (and well deserved) swipes at idiot Liberal party leader Tony Abbott - Honesty is the best policy: Turnbull swipes at state of politics and 'deficit of trust'. It remains a mystery to me how Abbott can actually have a lower approval rating than PM Julia Gillard and still remain Liberal leader - the country will be a complete laughingstock if he's still in place after the next election (which I expect the Liberals will win in spite of his presence).

Malcolm Turnbull has decried the state of political discourse in Australia, saying it had deteriorated to such an extent that the nation suffered "a deficit of trust" and there was an urgent need for honesty in politics.

If you love your country, have an interest in politics or policy, and care deeply about our nation's future, there's nothing more certain to arouse your fury and invite your contempt than listening to an entire House of Representatives question time.

In comments that are bound to be construed as critical of the style of Tony Abbott, as well as Julia Gillard, Mr Turnbull cited his own keen area of interest, the science of climate change, as a victim of what passed these days for political debate.

Delivering a lecture in Perth last night, Mr Turnbull said it was an inescapable fact that greenhouse gases caused the earth to warm. "Politicians and shock jocks, scientists and coal barons, all of them can argue for as long as they like, but they cannot change the physical reality," he said. "I won't linger on climate change – the hopeless, confused, hyper-partisan nature of the debate is too well known to rehearse."

Mr Turnbull also revisited the republic debate, a cause he fought for and lost at the 1999 referendum, saying "the next big watershed will be the end of the Elizabethan era".

He said republicans must not allow themselves to be split into two camps by the monarchists, as happened 13 years ago when monarchist strategists – including Mr Abbott and John Howard – "delightedly, if cynically, exploited the division by promising the direct electionists that if the parliamentary model was defeated at a referendum, they could have another referendum on a direct election model within a few years".

"Those republicans who voted 'No' expecting another vote in a few years, this time on their preferred model, should reflect on how comprehensively they were deceived by the trickery of their opponents and their own self-delusions, in equal measure."