The second is also routine,but more manipulative. Joyce and Canavan,and their small group of followers,want to throw Nationals leader Michael McCormack off balance.
The revolt would not be worth the name without the personal grudges and leadership spills that have plagued the Nationals for about five years.
One essential point is that nobody has set out a new demand. In arguing against farmers being slugged with a costly carbon target,Joyce and Canavan are spurning something the Prime Minister rejected only last week.
“My government will not tax our way to net zero emissions. I will not put that cost on Australians and I will particularly not ask regional Australians to carry that burden,” Morrison told the National Press Club.
After all,the sure way to make a leader fail is to invent a test he or she cannot meet. Just look at the Labor caucus,where anonymous MPs talk about the need for leader Anthony Albanese to embrace “bold decisions” – as if nobody has learned from the party’s failure with the too-bold-to-win tax plan at the last election.
So the climate debate is confected. On Tuesday,Joyce and Canavan even calculated the cost of a $30 carbon price on every tonne of burps and farts from the nation’s cow herd,then claimed this would cost farmers $70,000 each.
The only problem is they costed a policy that is not happening.