On Tuesday, various news outlets, including Fairfax and The Guardian, reported on the extremist climate change denying comments made by Maurice Newman.

Maurice Newman is chairman of the prime minister's new Business Advisory Council. He is also a director of the Queensland Investment Corporation, a government owned investment body.

He made his comments in an interview with The Australian, a conservative campaigning newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch, and well known as a biased promoter of climate change denialist views and news articles.

The views that Newman articulated are not in line with the government's supposed policy of accepting the scientific validity of climate change, and the need for public policy action (even if that policy is the discredited "direct action" policy).

He is also out of line with Tony Abbott himself, who conceded in a radio interview in 2011 that "climate change is real" and "humanity is making a contribution".

Maurice Newman stated in the interview that he believes that climate change is a "scientific delusion" and that climate change science is a "religion". He also accused the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of resorting to "dishonesty and deceit".

These are views that are on the extreme right-wing fringe of Australian society. They reflect a profound and willful ideological blindness about the risks that climate change will have globally and locally in Australia.

The CSIRO, Australia's most respected scientific research organisation warned:

The impacts of climate change are already clearly visible in Australia. Further impacts predicted to occur in the future will be experienced across all sectors of the economy and in all ecosystems.



Maurice Newman's extremist right-wing views on climate change are deep-seated. He helped establish, and was a member of the board of the ultra-conservative Centre for Independent Studies, a right-wing think tank that promotes free-market ideology and "limited" government. His other fringe views include that Australia's wages are "very high", that the previous Labor government's education Gonski reforms and the national disability insurance scheme were "reckless".

He also advocates the economically-discredited austerity ideology, urging prime minister Tony Abbott "to 'disturb the comfort zones of many' in order to 'repair' the budget". Cutting education spending, disability support and reducing wages are a carbon copy from the austerity fanatics' playbook.

Tony Abbott is going into 2014 as a deeply unpopular prime minister, with rock-bottom levels of support for his policy agenda. More people disapprove of Tony Abbott's performance as prime minister than approve.

January 1st is a day to make new year's resolutions.

If Tony Abbott wants to be trusted when he says "climate change is real", his new year's resolution in 2014 must be to disavow the dangerous climate change denialism of Maurice Newman.