QUESTION:
If this emissions trading scheme does ease cost of living burdens that you have repeatedly raised would you support it?
TONY ABBOTT:
The fact of the matter is we will abolish the carbon tax. Kevin Rudd won’t abolish the carbon tax. All he's doing is bringing forward by 12 months what Julia Gillard was doing anyway. This is fake change. It's not real change. It's typical of Kevin Rudd. It's another Kevin Rudd con job. By all means, bring the Parliament back and let's vote to abolish the thing altogether.
QUESTION:
Isn't having a market-based system, though, quite within the philosophy of the Coalition? Indeed, Howard and the thesis by Greg Hunt in the past? Isn't that kind what have needs to happen?
TONY ABBOTT:
This is not a true market. Just ask yourself what an emissions trading scheme is all about. It's a market, a so-called market, in the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no-one.
QUESTION:
Isn’t that like financial markets?
TONY ABBOTT:
I mean let's think about it. It is a market in the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no-one and look, ever since Copenhagen, it's been absolutely obvious that the world is not moving towards taxes, whether they're fixed taxes or floating taxes. The world is moving towards the kind of direct action measures to improve the environment which the Coalition has long championed.
QUESTION: