Scott Morrison with much fanfare has announced the Coalition’s climate policy – the Climate Solution Package. Unfortunately, for those 59 per cent of Australians who according to the Lowy Institute want strong government action on climate change, this announcement is not a climate hit, but rather to borrow the words of Propellerheads and Shirley Bassey, “a joke that is rather sad and just a little bit of history repeating”.

Scott Morrison announces the government's climate package at a function in Melbourne. Credit:David Crosling

We’ve seen it before and we’ll see it again - every time the polls are tight and an election is coming the Coalition pretends that it cares about climate. For example, after a decade of refusing to sign the Kyoto Protocol, John Howard announced an emissions trading scheme in the lead up to the 2007 election, yet when push came to shove in 2009 the Coalition rolled a leader over it. Then in 2013, Abbott announced the Emissions Reduction Fund, his alternative to the extremely effective Gillard Clean Energy Future package. Now in 2019, after toppling a Prime Minister over climate six months ago, Scott Morrison is trying the same old thing.

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So what did he announce yesterday? The main commitment was the Climate Solution Fund, a plan to top up Abbott’s ERF with $200 million a year over a decade. Despite its nice name and the many times Morrison claimed that Australia will meet its Paris targets in a canter, the reality is that this rebranded Abbott-era policy is anything but a solution to climate change.