Starmer Fires Former Oz PM And Climate Liar From Position On UK Board Of Trade
Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott has been stood down as a trade advisor by the new Labour government, DeSmog can reveal. Abbott is a trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), the UK’s leading climate science denial group, and has previously said that “climate change is probably doing good”.
He was appointed as an advisor to the government’s Board of Trade in September 2020 by Liz Truss, who was at the time serving as international trade secretary in Boris Johnson’s Conservative government. Labour leader Keir Starmer said at the time that he had “real concerns” about Abbott’s appointment, following criticism of the former Australian prime minister’s radical right-wing views.
Abbott served as prime minister from 2013 to 2015 before being ousted by his Liberal Party colleagues. He has likened action to combat climate change to “primitive people once killing goats to appease the volcano gods”, and is a long-standing advocate for coal power, the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel. Abbott has called decriminalising abortion “effectively infanticide on demand”, has suggested that men “are by physiology or temperament more adapted to exercise authority or to issue commands”, and was the leader of the 2017 campaign against legalising same-sex marriage in Australia (a campaign that he lost).
EDIT
DeSmog understands that all existing advisors to the Board of Trade have been stood down by the Labour government. This includes arch Brexiteer Lord Daniel Hannan, and David Meller, a Tory donor whose company was awarded £160 million worth of personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts during the pandemic after being referred to the ‘VIP’ lane by his ally Michael Gove, who was at the time serving as a Cabinet Office minister.
EDIT
https://www.desmog.com/2024/10/11/climate-denier-tony-abbott-dumped-as-government-trade-advisor/