from Crikey .....

Andrew Crook writes:

It was the day the Liberals and the ETS died in a head-on car crash befitting the spectacular fireworks of an ridiculous last week in Canberra. Christmas had clearly come early for hyperactive politicos who gathered around TV screens to watch the carnage unfold.

As the leaders hit the phones before 9am, Malcolm Turnbull declared to Sky News' Kieran Gilbert that "I will win" as Antony Green jumped into the fray on ABC 1 to "analyse" the non-existent results, without the usual benefit of either exit polls or trickles from the early booths.

With the Liberal party room frisked for mobiles outside the 9am meeting, there was no prospect of anyone repeating the now infamous Kevin Andrews "Tweet spill", leaving the talking heads to endlessly speculate on "soundings" that would soon become irrelevant.

Finally, after about 55 minutes in the bunker, Liberals' whip Alex Somlyay arrived to greet the media and declare the results of the secret ballot -- 35 votes to Abbott, 26 to Turnbull and 23 to Hockey in the first round and 42 to 41 in the run-off, with the obvious problem that the two votes totaled different amounts.

A third vote to delay or junk the emissions trading scheme was then passed 54 to 29, Somlyay relayed solemnly.

But the real drama was yet to come. As the scrum broke up, Sky News reported that unnamed party room member, possibly taking literally media speculation that the spill was a referendum on the ETS, or perhaps a devious attempt to remind Turnbull of his other major poll defeat over the republic, had scrawled "no" on their ballot paper.

Fran Bailey was mysteriously absent with a "middle ear infection", but one might assume that Bailey would have voted for Turnbull on broad ideological grounds or perhaps for Abbott if her recent attempt to wound her former leader on the front page of The Australian is any indication. Add the informal "no" and Bailey's vote to Turnbull's column and the Member for Wentworth would have squeaked over the line.

About 10:25am, the vanquished leader strode out into the courtyard, with only the slightest hint of resignation.

"It's been difficult times and there's been a lot of drama going on, and I want to thank all of them for their loyal support," Turnbull said, clearly enjoying this last pow-wow with the gallery. His wife, Lucy, stuck firmly by his side.

Then, at 10:55am, a flushed Tony Abbott emerged with the still-anointed Julie Bishop into the glare of the joint party room.

"The job of the Opposition is to be an alternative, not an echo," remarked the keen cyclist, in yet another indication that the whole debate was more a scavenge for the non-existent soul of the Liberal party than anything to do with policy.

The Frontier Economics ETS report would get another read, Abbott claimed, obviously unfamiliar with one of the main alternative policy options.

The new leader promised rigorous scrutiny on the ETS, despite the 13 inquiries and exhaustive amendments agreed to by Ian Macfarlane.

"It's been a tumultuous week for the Liberal Party and obviously it's been a big day for me.

"There are some wounds that need to be healed", Abbott said, in an ominous portent of the disastrous 10-year exile still to come.

There was one MP or senator who voted informally in the second vote. Sky News reported that the informal vote was marked with the word "'no".

Abbott left to applause from the media, unsurprising given the bonanza the coalition has gifted the assembled hacks over the last week.

Bronze medallist Joe Hockey was the last to front the press pack at 11:50am. "I am not a climate change sceptic," Hockey said, in a menacing portent of the party crack-up to come.

"I shouldn't be afraid to hide behind the skirt of another person," he also stumbled.

"There was always a surprise in these ballots, and I had one today", Hockey burbled, adding weight to claims that he either believed he had the numbers, and that Malcolm Turnbull wouldn't run, coupled with the other explanation that anti-Abbott forces had over-reached by attempting to "soften the blow" for Turnbull after he threw his hat into the ring.

A Turnbull withdrawal or a second-placing for Hockey in the first vote would have almost certainly secured him the leadership.

But in the end, the party-room wrangling will be eclipsed by the coming collapse of conservatism and the spooky beginnings of an effective one-party state.

As Crikey's deadline approached, Centrebet had the coalition as rank $5.15 outsiders for the coming federal poll. A semi-coherent sound bite from the Prime Minster on tonight's 6pm bulletins should see that blow out to double figures.

and .....

Liberals will rue the day they lurched right

Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

At each stage over the past week of the Liberal leadership saga, the Liberals have found new ways, wholly unexpected ways, to make things ever worse for themselves.

Today, they have trumped all their previous efforts. The election of Tony Abbott is a disaster of epic proportions for a party that was already up against it in the race to remain competitive at the next election. They have now taken a major step to the Right, towards their base, and away from mainstream voters.

The sight of Abbott being clapped into and out his first press conference by grinning troglodytes such as Bronwyn Bishop, Sophie Mirabella and Dennis Jensen must fill the hearts of Liberal moderates with deep anguish about the fate of the party when it goes up against the Rudd machine next year.

Abbott is, by his own admission, a deeply divisive figure. He is disliked by female voters for his aggressive attempts to use the Howard government to impose his brand of Catholicism. He is strongly associated with the Howard years, having been the former Prime Minister's most prominent acolyte. In his first press conference, he refused to rule out a return to Workchoices, only indicating that that name was dead. And while he has a commendable reputation for straight-speaking, he has none of the rhetorical power of Malcolm Turnbull or the warm media image of Joe Hockey. Abbott has developed his thinking post-Howard, and offered some intriguing and creative policy analysis in his book Battlelines earlier this year, but he remains a figure of solidly right-wing thinking.

He also leads a party almost perfectly divided, which has been the Liberals' problem right from the outset. He immediately committed to reaching out to party moderates, promising to include all shades of opinion on his frontbench. Hockey has indicated a willingness to continue serving and Abbott indicated he wanted him to remain shadow treasurer. How other moderates, especially environment spokesman Greg Hunt who strongly supports an ETS, will be treated, remains to be seen.

And any reflexive loyalty to the leader on the part of party moderates will likely have been dissolved by the antics of the party's right wing last week, in effect overturning the will of the party room and shadow cabinet with a campaign of outright defiance, a string of resignations and two spill motions. Having ignored party rules and conventions, the conservatives will have no recourse if moderates choose the same approach.

The first test will be whether moderate senators toe the party line and vote down the CPRS package in the Senate or whether the likes of Judith Troeth and about 8-10 other moderates cross the floor to vote along the lines the party agreed last week, thereby passing the package. Malcolm Turnbull in his press conference in effect encouraged them to do so, saying they should stand up for their beliefs. The fate of the Bill will be decided this week, especially as Steve Fielding has ruled out supporting a motion to defer consideration of the Bill in favour of his own lunatic suggestion that there be a Royal Commission into climate change.

If they don't support it, they and their colleagues will hand Kevin Rudd a double-dissolution trigger that he may now be much more inclined to use than previously, given the patent disarray within coalition ranks.

Labor remains concerned about its susceptibility to an anti-tax campaign by the coalition on the CPRS and a xenophobic appeal to its blue-collar demographic from climate denialists.

Even so, it is the coalition that is likely to continue to have problems with the climate-change issue.

So get used to a more right-wing Opposition, deeply conservative, one that rejects climate change, one in which hardliners who languished under the progressive Turnbull will have their day in the sun.

But a reckoning awaits at polling day. And sadly for the moderates, they will pay the price every bit as heavily as their conservative colleagues.