A long time ago — last year, I think — I suggested that because the government’s ETS was going to be a dud, the policy challenge was to identify the next-best option for moving to a low-carbon economy. In my view, a carbon tax was the next-best option, but one that would end up being subject to the same emasculation by industry that has turned a flawed but potentially workable Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme into a rent-seekers’ paradise. And anyway, a political problem with an ETS and a carbon tax was that they gave politicians, who are very hands-on sort of people, nothing to do.

Meantime the “debate” over how we deal with climate change has been reduced to highly coloured commentary on the game of chicken being played out between Malcolm Turnbull and his shadow Cabinet, and the Liberal backbench. The issue is now whether the amendments developed by the Coalition leadership will be ticked off by Liberal MPs (they will be), not what the amendments will actually do, which will primarily be to remove whatever faint trace of incentive there is left in the CPRS for anyone to do anything except keep churning the paperwork.

Once the amendments are approved, the “debate” will then shift to a different game of chicken, in which Turnbull will facing off against a slightly more difficult opponent than Wilson Tuckey, in the form of the Prime Minister.