Stephen Long reported this story on Monday, July 18, 2011 18:13:00

MARK COLVIN: Tony Abbott has played down the contributions of economists and climate scientists to such an extent that some are worried that evidence will take a back seat in the carbon price debate.



Economics correspondent Stephen Long looks at some of the claims against the economic evidence.



STEPHEN LONG: The line has been constant and unwavering.



TONY ABBOTT (montage of sound bites): This carbon tax will have a very big impact.



Jobs that will be damaged or destroyed by Labor's carbon tax.



That's why this carbon tax is going to be so toxic.



Labor's toxic carbon tax.



Don't proceed with this toxic tax.



No to this toxic tax.



STEPHEN LONG: It's the first rule of propaganda - confine the message to a few simple points and repeat them over and over. And Tony Abbott is a master.



On the carbon price he's cutting through while the Government struggles to sell the policy.



Full credit to the Opposition Leader's political skill. But he's been aided and abetted by journalists who've continued to report unchallenged claims that appear to contradict facts.



Take the Opposition Leader's claim that the carbon tax will shut down the coal industry. This is one version of the line he keeps repeating.



TONY ABBOTT: Go to the package that the Government released on the weekend and look at what happens to coal. It goes from 80 per cent of our power generation to at best 25 per cent of our power generation, and more likely 10 per cent of our power generation.



So on the Government's own figures coal is a goner.



STEPHEN LONG: Every credible analysis including the industry's own says the coal industry is going to enjoy a massive expansion despite the Government's carbon price.



The reality is 80 per cent of Australia's coal is exported. Only a small share is used for domestic electricity, and as Asia industrialises, coal exports have been booming with no end in sight.



The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences, or ABARES, is the official forecaster.



It estimates that exports of coking coal, used in steel production, will increase by nearly 60 million tonnes over the next five years - an increase of more than a third, or the equivalent of about six big new mines.



The forecast for thermal coal used to generate power is even more dramatic, with the volume of exports expanding by about two-thirds or more than 90 million tonnes.



So what of the claim that coal will dwindle as a source of domestic power? Yes, that is what the Government's own figures say. But the decline is set to take place over 40 years. The shift away from coal-fired electricity in this decade will be very small and confined to plants using the dirtiest, most polluting, low-grade brown coal.



Yet much of the media broadcasts or quotes Mr Abbott's claim about the death of coal with no deconstruction.



It was left to an ordinary punter at a town meeting last week to do the journos' job for them.



WOMAN: Why do you persist with the scare-mongering by insisting that with the introduction of a price on carbon the coal industry faces certain demise?



TONY ABBOTT: Because if coal goes from 80 per cent of power generation to 10 per cent of power generation, as the Government's own documents state, that's obviously got pretty big implications for the coal industry.



WOMAN: It's not going to shut down.



TONY ABBOTT: Well, it's going to go from 80 per cent of power to 10 per cent of power on the Government's own documents. I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one, Vicky.



STEPHEN LONG: Food's also a glorious area for scaremongering as industry groups push for more compensation. Here's how Channel Seven is promoting a story it's airing tonight.



EXTRACT FROM CHANNEL SEVEN NEWS PROMO:



MALE VOICE 1: Grocery prices - the real impact of the carbon tax. The Government says prices will barely rise but did they ask the supermarkets?



Seven News did.



MALE VOICE 2: Can I tell you, I've just seen a couple of pigs fly past the window.



STEPHEN LONG: The Food and Grocery Council has promoted a claim that food prices will rise by up to 5 per cent as a result of a carbon price - many multiples of the Treasury estimate of less than half a per cent.



After the carbon pricing announcement, the Council's boss Kate Carnell poured scorn on the Government's estimates.



KATE CARNELL: The increased costs on farms, increased transport costs, increased packaging costs, increased factory costs. The list goes on and we would have trouble believing the Government figures.



STEPHEN LONG: But you might have trouble believing the Grocery Council's figure if you knew that it had refused to publish the research on which it was based or explain the methodology.



That suggests it's propaganda - spin. Yet it hasn't stopped the media from repeating the claim time and time again.



MARK COLVIN: Stephen Long.