Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When launching his 2013 election campaign, the then Leader of the Opposition told Australians that Australia's worst deficit was not the budget deficit but the trust deficit. Just as this government has doubled the budget deficit after promising to cut it, the Prime Minister's litany of broken promises and tricky excuses has left levels of trust in Australia at all-time lows. Broken promises on health, education funding, the pension, higher education fees, the NBN, taxes, the ABC, SBS and soon the GST have left the Prime Minister's leadership teetering.

Now it seems that the next contender for the job—the member for Wentworth—is keen to follow the same approach. Not only has he endorsed every one of these broken promises; but he is working on some broken promises of his own. Today's Australian informs its readers:

MPs expect Mr Turnbull to make it clear he would not reopen old divisions over climate change by arguing for an emissions trading scheme to cut greenhouse gases.

This is a plan that is so cunning Godwin Grech would approve—#seriously! In October 2009 Malcolm Turnbull told the ABC:

I will not lead a party that is not as committed to effective action on climate change as I am.

In December 2009 Malcolm Turnbull further said:

Now politics is about conviction and a commitment to carry out those convictions.

…   …   …

Many Liberals are rightly dismayed that on this vital issue of climate change we are not simply without a policy, without any prospect of having a credible policy but we are now without integrity. We have given our opponents the irrefutable, undeniable evidence that we cannot be trusted.

The member for Wentworth is right about the previous leader and he is right about the next one.