Queensland’s Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg said the comments helped highlight the faults in Labor’s scheme.

“Nobody should be surprised with Barnaby’s colourful language and original language, you always get that from Barnaby and that’s fine,” he said.

“One thing he’s actually addressed…is the cost of this to Australian families, who are already struggling in very uncertain economic times.”

So it looks like The Borg and the LibNats are signing up for the denialist club. Or sort of. Springborg’s position is somewhat obscured in the death by a thousand rhetorical questions maneouvre. And what, I wonder, does this mean for the CPRS’ path through the Senate?

Malcolm Turnbull, who is yet to announce a position on emissions trading, played down the differences between the Coalition.

He said the Coalition would speak with “one voice” on emissions trading.

“We’re very committed to action on climate change that is economically responsible and environmentally effective,” he said.

“We work as a very close coalition and I’ve no doubt that we will be responding to this legislation with one voice.”

It could be that Turnbull is hoping to pull the Nats into line. But given sentiment in many parts of his own party (including that of his Senate Leader, Nick Minchin, and of course, the recently prominent former Dear Leader), it may be that the Libs’ get pulled in the direction of Barnaby’s stand. Will the government end up having to negotiate with The Greens? This could get interesting. In a way, there’s nothing Kevin Rudd would like more – the political markers for painting the Liberals as sceptics, wreckers and denialists on Climate Change have well and truly be laid down already. But if he can’t blast the Coalition into submission rhetorically, how does his “balance” line survive having to negotiate with The Greens? … Of course, there’s always the other possibility – perhaps the most likely one – that the Coalition could split every which way in the Senate.

The rambling and disconnected musings from Joyce in the report in The Australian demonstrate how unfocused a champion he would be. It’s tempting to enumerate the contradictions in Joyce’ blah, but perhaps commenters should have some fun too. It may be, of course, that a Joyce run for the Reps would be attractive to Malcolm Turnbull if it were believed that it would take his focus off the Senate. That, of course, would be wishful thinking.

The only way Howard’s idea might make sense is if you believe that Joyce’s social conservatism is attractive. Kevin Rudd, however, has that in spades himself, and if the 2007 election proved anything, it showed that the “values” debate and the culture wars had lost their electoral lustre, if indeed they ever had any.

Update [dk.au]: Possum on Barnaby’s Electoral Dartboard