Tories fall apart over climate change

We are used to hearing about the Australian Tories as a "coalition". In common parlance this is simply a respectful way of acknowledging that the cyst on the side of the Liberal Party is still formally registered with the AEC.

Keating once called it "vaudeville", and commentators often refer to the National Party as the tail with the power to occasionally wag the dog. In truth however, the National Party is more correctly described itself as the dog, the dog with one trick: rolling over.

So it is when the National Party "draws battle lines". The last time they did it was Telstra. This time however climate change denier Barnaby Joyce is drawing the battlelines on the CPRS.

Malcolm Turnbull, keen too avoid an embarrassing division within the coalition wants to delay voting on the legislation until after after the Copenhagen global discussions, arguing Australia should go to the negotiations with no trading scheme and tell others to implement one. Joyce however, has said that like the Greens the Nationals want to have the vote immediately so they can shut it down.

Confusing? Here's a summary of positions:

ALP: Want vote immediately to pass the bill;
Greens: Want vote immediately to defeat the bill;
Liberals: Want vote delay to negotiate the bill;
Nationals: Want vote immediately to defeat the bill;

To complicate matters, the Liberals are still apparently negotiation with the Labor party as representatives of the coalition.

So while the coalition looks set to implode one question remains: will the dog roll over?

Read the full debacle here.