Thursday 11 February 2010

When politicians take to writing lines.....




Click to enlarge
Blue CPRS
Red ETS
Yellow carbon tax
Green great big new tax

The phrase "great big new tax" is being used frequently by Coalition politicians and the media but doesn't appear to be cutting through on the Internet.
Google only lists it occurring 206,000 times world-wide and Google Trends has it running a very poor last in search terms across Australia over the last twelve months.

Australian Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott is particularly fond of the phrase, but is it his own?

How about a great big new tax, to keep Earth cool, and government absolutely swimming in cash to spread around?

The highlighted phrasing sound familiar?

No, it's not Mr. Abbott speaking in parliament, talking with the media or posting on his website (where he remains strangely coy about using those exact words).
This quote comes from a post discussing U.S.cap and trade on an anti-climate change blog in April 2009 at a time when Abbott was more concerned with participating in Pollie Pedal for charity and discussing the appropriateness of the earlier national apology to the Stolen Generation.

Seems that Tony might have borrowed the phrase.
Anyone else come across an earlier use of great big new tax?

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