While the Liberals are embroiled in a simply delicious leadership crisis as the tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorists try to hijack the party, it’s worth taking a look at this enlightening Tony Abbott interview on Lateline which took place not ten days ago:

TONY JONES: I hear what you’re saying about the earth having been hotter in different periods in its entire global history, but let me ask you this. Have you read the science that we’re talking about here – for example, have you read the IPCC’s report?

TONY ABBOTT: No, I don’t claim to have immersed myself deeply in all of these documents. I’m a politician. I have to rely on briefings – I have to rely on what I pick up through the secondary sources.

But look, I think I am as well versed on these matters as your average politician needs to be.

TONY JONES: But you have read Ian Plimer’s book.

TONY ABBOTT: I haven’t yet finished Ian Plimer’s book. I have started Ian Plimer’s book.

TONY JONES: But you have quoted it from time to time.

TONY ABBOTT: I’ve quoted a couple of passages, and I confess I’m probably more familiar with the book through people who’ve written about it than I am through having read it myself.

TONY JONES: What evidence do you have then for saying that the earth has cooled since the late 1990s.

TONY ABBOTT: Well, I am not setting myself up as the great expert here, but the Hadley Institute in Britain, which is apparently one of the most reputable of these measuring centres, according to press reports, has found that after heating up very significantly in the previous 25 years, there seems to have been a slight cooling, but at a high plateau I’ll accept that.

TONY JONES: That is Ian Plimer’s argument. So when you actually go…

TONY ABBOTT: This is the Hadley Centre – this is measurements.

TONY JONES: I’m about to tell you what the Hadley Centre actually says. When you go and look at what it says about global temperatures you’ll find that they say that the years 1998 to 2006 include the hottest, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth and the sixth hottest years in recorded history.

TONY ABBOTT: And the hottest one was at the beginning and the less hot ones have been since.

And it goes on. To summarise:

  • Tony Abbott has not read the IPCC report.
  • But he has read Heaven & Earth.
  • But he’s only started it.
  • But he’s capable of reciting whole passages of it at the drop of a hat even though he hasn’t read it.
  • This is because he’s familiar with the book having read people who have written about it.

This is why Andrew Bolt being the intellectual beacon of Liberals is a good thing.

Bring on the next election.