Labor's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme appears to be an ugly dog that nobody loves but its owners.
But that could be just what the Government wants in order to fight a double dissolution election on the grounds of the Coalition's weak suit of climate change policy.
Then again, it appears to be a fight the Coalition is ready for and wants to turn towards its strong suit of the economy, with Nationals Senator Ron Boswell this week campaigning in key marginal Queensland seats on the basis that an ETS will cost thousands of mining and agricultural jobs.
But more on that later; first to the likelihood of a double dissolution.
Having cleared the House of Representatives where Labor has the numbers last week, the legislation for the CPRS will receive a hostile reception in the Senate.
There it will face outright rejection from the Nationals and Greens, albeit for very different reasons.
The Liberals and Independent Nick Xenophon will also reject it as they want to delay discussion of the legislation, with the Liberals arguing for a deferral until after the international talks at Copenhagen, while Xenophon wants a shorter delay for further dissection of the legislation itself.
And with Family First's Steve Fielding now questioning the scientific basis behind the global warming threat, the Bill has no chance of being made law by the Senate during the next sitting of Parliament.
If Labor sticks to its guns and sends the legislation back to the Senate again three months later, where it will probably again be rejected, this could provide the Government with a trigger to call a double dissolution election.
Indeed, that is what Senator Boswell believes will happen, forecasting that Labor will call an election in February or March next year.
Boswell points out that the Electoral Commission's redistribution of a seat from NSW to Queensland will prevent the government from going to the polls before Christmas - if the redistribution hasn't been completed when an election is called a messy automatic realignment of the biggest seats will happen, which could then put extra seats in play for the Coalition on polling day.
But the Canberra Press Gallery's most experienced correspondent Rob Chalmers writes in his Inside Canberra column that there is a much more practical reason for such a delay to beyond Christmas. He says the CPRS legislation is "most unlikely to be voted on" by the Senate in the next two weeks.
"A Senate committee has already conducted an inquiry on the first CPRS, but not the second and it will be sent off to a Senate committee to examine... The Senate will then meet for two weeks from 11 to 20 August. If the legislation is voted down, probably around 19 August, this would provide the first trigger.
"The Government would then be required to wait for three months before putting the ETS legislation up again (ie at or after 19 November). There would not then be enough time before the Christmas holidays for the bill again to be debated and defeated and a double dissolution election called, allowing the minimum 30 days before polling day."
Whatever the reason, it seems that if the Government wants a double dissolution election, it will have to wait until next year - which is of course after the Copenhagen summit.
This means that the Liberals can go to the polls arguing it was right all along in arguing there was no risk in waiting until after Copenhagen before finalising Australia's carbon trading scheme. But if Copenhagen flops badly, the danger is Labor will go to the polls with a strong case not to delay action any further as the world may never agree to a single strategy (think Doha and the World Trade Organisation).
But all of this is hypothetical - on the ground in voters' minds it will come down to key issues such as the relative importance of Australia taking action on carbon emissions versus the real risk of losing their job.
And in coal mining towns throughout Central Queensland that is manna for The Nationals which believe they never should have lost the seats of Dawson and Flynn to Labor at the last election. Thus the early campaigning by Senator Boswell this week in Rockhampton, Gladstone, Mackay and west to the coal fields and farming communities which will bear the economic cost of the CPRS.
While that may account for two Labor seats, the debate will be different in the urban areas which ultimately decide elections - the question for the Coalition is whether it can nullify Labor's advantage by producing a credible carbon emissions reduction policy, thus allowing them to make the economy the issue at the next election.
Complicated but fascinating politics ahead.
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