Carbon tax poll driver: Abbott
Tony Abbott has begun plotting the post-election landscape, declaring Saturday's poll a referendum on the carbon tax.
In a clear indication that the Liberal leader wants to avoid a double-dissolution election in 15 to 18 months, Mr Abbott said it would be "unimaginable" for the Labor Party to persist with the carbon tax.
Mr Abbott ramped up his rhetoric at the National Press Club yesterday, saying that Woodside Petroleum's Browse project off the Kimberley coast would "almost certainly be guaranteed not to proceed" if the carbon tax, mining tax and industrial relations system remained.
He said there was a "subterranean struggle" going on within Labor for the party's soul, between those who stand up for working Australians and those who are "philosophically attuned to the Greens".
"If Labor loses this election, the last thing they will want to do is continue this relationship with the Greens that has caused them so much pain," Mr Abbott said.
Though Labor will not decide its strategy on the carbon tax until after the election, it has been discussed internally for months.
Many in the ALP believe it should stick by carbon pricing as a matter of principle and a way of causing grief to an incoming Abbott government.
If Labor and the Greens refuse to support axing the carbon legislation, it would likely remain unless the coalition could secure four out of six Senate seats in at least three States in Saturday's half-Senate election. ABC election analyst Antony Green said Mr Abbott would not want a double-dissolution election on carbon or any other issue because the risk of micro parties winning seats would be high, making the Senate even more unworkable.
Climate Change Minister Mark Butler said Mr Abbott had misrepresented and exaggerated the impact of carbon pricing on the economy. "The carbon price has now been in place for 14 months. Since it started, employment has grown by 150,000 jobs," he said.
