Janet Albrechtsen, the shape of things to come, and collegial polity all the rage ...

(Above: Janet Albrechtsen on this week's Q & A blathering on about Mark Arbib being faceless and gutless. Gutless maybe, for his refusal to cross Gillard and appear on the show, unless of course he suggested to Gillard that she ban him from the show, so that he could take the dive, but faceless? For gawd's sake, here he is on Lateline being bare faced rather than faceless).

(Arbib rejects kingmaker mantle. Enough with the faceless already, or we'll feel the need to scribble about hideous poils.)

The favourite game on the pond at the moment is re-writing the broodings of the chattering elitist commentariat on the coulda been shoulda been result, and the elevation of Tony Abbott to near sainthood, but not quite, meaning a stay in the Mary McKillop outhouse while we wait for the second approved miracle in the coming months.

Oh okay we promised never to scribble about elites and to always use the proper circumflex, but I guess it's time whipper snappers learned about non-core promises.

Take, for example, Dame Slap aka Janet Albrechtsen - for the love of the dear absent lord are there no takers for Dame Slap? - scribbling furiously in Polished Abbott rises in stature:

At some point, Labor may wake up to its failings. While much has been said, in time tomes will surely be written about the ALP machine's obsession with poll-driven policy and quick-draw political assassinations, its failure to manage a burned leader and its own hubris. It treated voters as mugs with ill-conceived policies, promises that stretched credulity and confused messages about a party that lost its way only to request help from its assassinated leader. And even more hubris when it underestimated its new Liberal opponent. If Labor does take a good long at itself after the election, Abbott can take the credit for that, too. Meanwhile Abbott must hope people keep underestimating him.

Hey presto, and with a bit of Brasso, and a lot of elbow grease, as my grandmother used to say when working over the few bits of genuine silver in the family, this becomes:

At some point, Abbott may wake up to his failings. While much has been said, in time tomes will surely be written about his obsession with poll-driven policy, including his desire to assassinate broadband and his ambivalent refusal to take climate change seriously. He treated voters as mugs with ill-conceived policies, promises that stretched credulity and confused messages about a party that lost its way, only to request help from Malcolm Turnbull in trying to sell his confused climate change and NBN policies. And he showed even more hubris when he underestimated his Greens and independent opponents. If the Liberal party does take a good long look at itself after the election, Bob Brown and the independents can take the credit for that. Meanwhile Bob Brown and the Labor party must hope Abbott keeps on underestimating interest in broadband, especially in the bush, and in climate change.

Why did we insert all that stuff about climate change? Well here's Dame Slap earlier in her piece on the significance of climate change:

With due respect to Turnbull, the Coalition pushing an emissions trading system would not have won seats in Macarthur or Macquarie, or Longman, or Flynn, or Forde, or Dawson; seats picked up by the Coalition. Turnbull chose to martyr himself on climate change, an issue Rudd, Gillard and Labor strategists dropped. Much of the world has dropped it too. Anyone remember Copenhagen? Anyone following what's happening or not happening in the US on climate change? Abbott was responsible for changing the politics of climate change in Australia, putting it back in the real world.

With due mealy mouthed and condescending respect, putting it back in the real world ...

Would that be the real world where Queensland fish species migrating south due to climate change? Dear sweet absent lord, it's a story in a Murdoch rag, and therefore must have been scrupulously researched and so credible.

It seems Nemo's cousins are cruising south as the water warms:

Climate change is turning the environment upside-down, with Queensland groper, tiger sharks and even warm-water fish like coral trout being found in Tasmania.

Scientists also have recorded yellowtail kingfish and snapper heading south, while north Queensland barramundi and threadfin salmon are being caught in Moreton Bay off Brisbane and on the Gold Coast.

Scientists say it shows how climate change is redistributing species.

Of course with her training as a lawyer, Albrechtsen is perfectly poised and trained to refute the observations of mere piscatorial scientists.

But hang on, here's our favourite for the week, the young whippersnapper Wyatt Roy freshly installed in Longman, and good luck to him:

Asked about his views on climate change, he was cautious, but it is clear his views are shaped by the fact he is part of arguably the first generation to have grown up with climate change as an all-pervasive issue.

''I've looked at the science on both sides, and I do genuinely believe climate change is plausible, and at the very least it deserves an insurance policy,'' he said. ''I think one of the things I would bring to the parliament is that longer-term perspective. There are big challenges about intergenerational energy security and energy interdependence, and I think that is part of the wider climate change debate, and … that perspective is something that should be discussed a little bit more. (here).

Take it from Dame Slap Roy! Drop it! Join her in the cupboard at the bottom of the stairs where everyone is safe from the boogeyman ...

Now let's not worry about wheeling out the Pakistan floods, Russia's heat wave and fires, with concomitant life killing pall hanging over the country, and the recent hot summer in the United States, since one off effects are hard to connect to overall patterns, but is there anybody else in the world scribbling the same kind of obfuscatory tripe as Albrechtsen, whose impression of of an ostrich head in sand revives the myth that this is an effective ostrich way to deal with problems.

Actually as Dr Karl explains at great length in Ostrich head in sand, that's all the fault of Pliny.

Meanwhile, whether Albrechtsen likes it or not, or pretends that climate change has no clothes, is invisible and totally irrelevant to the world, it's remarkable how it keeps on bobbing up in post-election discussions on the way things might proceed.

To find out about all that, you have to resort to alternative reading matter, such as Ross Gittin's Revolution of the thinking voter turns politics green. We won't bother quoting him, since he makes his points at length, and in detail, unlike the throwaway gibberish of Dame Slap.

Meanwhile, one of the funniest things about the current situation is seeing former boofhead headkicker and parliamentary ratbag Abbott talk gravely about the need for new standards and collegial consultation with colleagues and parliamentary reform and genuine questions and genuine debate and how needlessly confrontational politics is and how it could be much kinder and gentler - after running an almost entirely negative campaign, much like the Labor party .

Collegial polity! Now there's a new buzzword, especially as Tony Windsor noted drily that in his day he'd been cuffed around the ears often enough by the Liberals when they were in power (yes they speak drily up Tamworth way where the summer heat is good enough to throw a couple of eggs and a cockatoo on the bonnet of a car, and hey presto a breakfast worthy of kings).

The bottom line is that so long as the likes of Albrechtsen rabbits on in a state of denial about the triumphs of Liberal party policy in relation to climate change, broadband and such like, and simply refuses to accept the bolshie indie mood of the electorate, the less relevant she becomes.

Predictably much of the rest of her column is dedicated to a negative diatribe about the Labor party and its many failings, and so is tedious beyond measure and only useful as a way to catch cockatoo droppings should you be so cruel as to keep one in a cage.

Shush Dame Slap! Shush! Collegial polity is all the rage!

And since we're in a transubstantiation mood today, we've adapted our very own recipe for cockatoos to politicians. Tony Abbott would be eminently suitable, trapped as he is in his own climate change juices:

Equipment needed A very large billy (an extremely large saucepan will do)

Ingredients • Water (couple of dozen litres/quarts)
• One medium to large politician
• One large rock
• Salt and pepper to taste

Method Place the water, rock and politician into the billy and bring to boil.

Simmer for 10 to 12 hours.

When the rock is soft, throw the politician away
Eat the rock.

Phew, don't know why I woke up this morning in such good humour, recycling such hideous old jokes.

For a moment there I thought it might be napalm, but I guess it's the smell of collegial polity in the fresh morning air...

You know, I love the smell of collegial polity in the morning. The smell, you know that smell of lightly broiled politicians ... Smells like victory ...

(Below: speaking of politicians and cockies, way back when, John Frith did a fine job portraying Arthur Calwell as a cocky, and you can find more details about his work here. The notion that politics and cockies and humour could mix has stayed with me ever since).