Last night’s episode of Q&A devoted a fair chunk of air time to the most extensive debate on climate change policy we’ve been treated to so far in this election. It was edifying to watch people getting agitated, raising their voices, arguing with each other.

But then Tom Switzer, editor of The Spectator, piped up:

“…man made global warming, the science of it, it’s a bit like The Da Vinci Code — there’s a grain of truth, but there’s a mountain of nonsense. And the problem is, the alarmists in this debate are totally incapable of understatement. Totally incapable of understatement. And we’ve seen that in the course of the whole Climategate scandal…”

Someone citing a Tom Hanks movie to support an argument would be funny if not for the fact that the major political parties’ existing climate change policies reflect Switzer’s informed thinking better than any climate scientist, or member of the majority who supported an ETS, or those laughing in disbelief in the audience. And all of them make John Howard look like a greenie.

As Paul Gilding in Climate Spectator argues today: “…anyone who thinks the most important climate action needed in Australia is a price on carbon, would have been better off voting for John Howard at the last election.”

Nostalgic for the climate change policies of the John Howard days. The wonders in this campaign will never cease.