the wacko rudd-gillard government, says abbott

TONY Abbott has offered Americans an insight into the "wonderful, wacko world" of the Rudd-Gillard government, describing his federal predecessors as "scandalous".

In an interview with the Washington Post, the newspaper that famously exposed the Watergate scandal during the Nixon years, the Prime Minister also rubbished suggestions the recent bushfires were linked to climate change.

"Welcome to the wonderful, wacko world of the former government," he said.

"I thought it was the most incompetent and untrustworthy government in modern Australian history."

Asked to expand on his argument, Mr Abbott said the former government made a whole lot of commitments, "which they scandalously failed to honour".

"They did a lot of things that were scandalously wasteful and the actual conduct of government was a circus.

"They were untrustworthy in terms of the carbon tax. They were incompetent in terms of the national broadband network," he said. "They were a scandal when it came to their own internal disunity.

"They made a whole lot of grubby deals in order to try and perpetuate themselves in power. It was an embarrassing spectacle, and I think Australians are relieved they are gone."

Mr Abbott also told Americans the arguments around climate change had become too "theological" - Australia had had fires and floods since the beginning of time.

"We've had much bigger floods and fires than the ones we've recently experienced. You can hardly say they were the result of anthropic global warming,'' he said.

"This argument has become far too theological for anyone's good. I accept that climate change is a reality. And I support policies that will be effective in reducing emissions, but I do think there is too much climate-change alarmism."

Mr Abbott told the Tasmanian Liberal Party Conference yesterday his "stop the boats" pledge was already being realised, despite Labor shifting to a hard line policy in June.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/prime-minister-tony-abbott-tells-the-us-of-the-wacko-ruddgillard-government/story-fni0cx12-1226747452833