Malcolm Turnbull’s government now has to share the gold medal for unpopularity with its predecessor, the Abbott hilarity. The government is getting extraordinarily desperate, so that now it, and its assorted supporters, are telling even more bald-faced lies. MP Craig Kelly posted on his Facebook page a statement that 656 Gigawatts (Gw) of coal fired power stations were ‘under active development’ in 60 countries and that this amounts to ‘over 1,200 coal-fired power stations’ equivalent of South Australia’s recently decommissioned 520 Megawatt Northern Power Station1. This is a lie. The source Kelly quotes, points out that of that 656 Gw, only 209.5 Gw is in fact under construction and those power stations are in 35 countries not 602.
Clearly, 1,200 was not a large enough number, so Tony Abbott’s former chief of staff, Peta Credlin jacked it up even more, in stating that there are 1,600 high efficiency-low emission (HELE) coal-fired power stations being built around the world. This is also a lie. The current number under construction is 150 worldwide.
Is the Liberal Party and its supporters, as well as the ‘ruperters’ at some of Murdoch’s media outlets, becoming so desperate to retain power that they will lie, or are they, perversely, attempting to undermine Malcolm Turnbull by spouting lies that can be easily shown to be so?
Sources
- https://www.facebook.com/CraigKellyMP/
- https://theaimn.com/fact-checking-craig-kelly-is-a-full-time-job/
