Prime Minister Tony Abbott recently told shock jock Alan Jones that wind-farms are “visually awful and make a lot of noise.” This was essentially an endorsement of Rupert Murdoch’s comment last year that “we shouldn’t be building windmills and all that rubbish”.  Abbott then went on to proudly proclaim to Jones that he had “reduced the renewable energy target” and added that he would have liked to reduce the number of wind-farms by a “lot more”.

After allowing his environment minister, Greg Hunt, to agree on a target with Labor he is now is patently wishing he could walk away from the issue. This will do little to encourage certainty in the business community.

Yet Abbott’s retreat on forward-looking responses to climate change should not come as a surprise. After the indecisive federal election in 2010, he told Member for Lyne, Rob Oakeshott, “If you believe in climate change, go with the other mob”.

It seems that on this all-important issue Abbott has never ever had his heart in it at all.

Frank Carroll