Anatomy of power

When you are likely to be languishing in opposition for a while - possibly even decades - I suppose it seems like a good idea to try something a bit radical in an attempt to alter that.

Which is why the coalition discarded their leader Malcolm and embraced Tony. Two years ago Rudd was at the peak of his power and the coalition was despondent. Back then it must have seemed like a good idea to deny the science and the economics around climate change and try to use "made up" stuff to wedge the government.

Delay and deny and associated fear campaigns seemed like good things to use to create chaos and scare people toward the coalition.

And having decided to go down that path they are now obliged to keep at it because they have far too much invested - as do their partner in crime - News Limited. And anyway their new bogan constituency and big business believed them when they said they would turn back the clock.

But then something unusual happened - the government lost its nerve and abandoned its emissions trading scheme which was at the centre of their popular support. Rudd was soon toasted and Gillard became leader. But she has failed to impress and it is now very clear that had Malcolm been in charge last August - then he would have won handsomely.

The coalition would be back in its most natural state - shovelling cash at bogans - Tony would be a minister and there would be no need to divide and conquer. The blue team would be pulling the levers and everything would be as good as gold.

Except it didn't turn out like that.

Tony is still their leader and for all his stunts he is seriously on the nose with large sections of our population. Despite the ABC's attempt to spin it - the #abbottin3 Twitter hashtag demonstrates that large numbers of thinking Australians don't want him anywhere near the levers.

Both he and his party are now between a rock and a hard place - with all the independent commentators saying they are on the wrong side of both the "science" and the "economics" of climate change.

So what started out as a grand if risky plan to get back into the big seats is turning into a major political disaster. Someone in the coalition will need to deal with it soon - and it won't be pretty.