Coalition’s Canavan launches the sausage sizzle climate scare campaign

Remember Barnaby Joyce’s prediction of $100 lamb roasts? Tony Abbott’s prediction that the steel city of Whyalla would be a ghost town?

It’s on again. The federal resources minister Matt Canavan is warning that Labor’s emissions reduction target will be the end of the sausage sizzle as we know it – a massive blow, not only to Bunnings fundraisers, but possibly the end of the Australian way of life as we know it.

Really.

In a front page story in the Murdoch media’s Courier Mail, titled “Sausage sizzle in danger”, Canavan also warns that the price of meat trays – another favourite fundraiser for charities and sporting groups – could leap to $100 under Labor’s “carbon tax.”

“Bill Shorten’s carbon tax means that Queensland sporting clubs will have less to spend on footy jerseys and netball bibs,” Canavan, who also wants a coal-fired generator to be built in Queensland, told the paper.

Where does Canavan get this idea? From the discredited modelling produced last week by Brian Fisher, an economist long favoured by the coal mining industry for painting renewables targets and climate change action as economy-wrecking tools.

According to Canavan and the Courier-Mail, not only will meat trays leap to $100, but the price of thin BBQ sausages will double. This is based on Fisher’s barking mad carbon price predictions of $326/tonne, which is what he says will be required to meet the Labor target.

According to the Courier Mail, butchers and junior rugby league clubs are outraged. And Susan McDonald, the managing director of Super Butcher, who just happens to be the LNP Senate candidate, is demanding answers. And energy minister Angus Taylor is in there now, warning that high electricity prices will hit butchers who rely on electricity to operate their fridges.

Just six or seven weeks to go until the election. But be warned – this is just the start. And the Coalition’s only hope of success in states like Queensland is that voters are really stupid, or scared.