In a blunt warning to the national congress of the Returned and Services League, Kevin Rudd also said he wanted to use Australia’s status as “a middle power” to promote comprehensive diplomatic engagement within the region and through the UN as a buffer against regional rivalries.

Total government spending for each Victorian government school student in 2005-06 was $10,352. Total spending for each non-government school student was almost half that figure — $5614. Independent school parents pick up the difference and in Victoria they are going to have to make an even bigger sacrifice.

88 per cent of those surveyed said Australia should introduce an emissions trading scheme, with 61 per cent saying it should happen regardless of what other countries did. A clear majority, 58 per cent, said they would be prepared to pay more for energy, although only 50 per cent of Coalition voters were prepared to accept price rises.

With the outcome of the Western Australian election in doubt and upheavals in New South Wales, the aftershocks of the weekend’s ruptures in the Labor Party will be felt in Canberra. But other parties also have their problems. From coast-to-coast Labor governments to coast-to-coast confusion has taken a mere 10 months.

There is now a dual message that is more lethal than the Labor Party anticipated, and which offers fresh hope for the Liberal Party. It is caused by the combination of ineffective state ALP governments, the absence of any Liberal incumbent on which to cast blame, and the disposition of the Australian voter for political balance.

Labor’s policy on Afghanistan has consistently been that Australia’s presence there, rather than Iraq, represents our commitment to fighting al-Qaeda and the Taliban at “the coalface”. But the promises Labor made while in Opposition are forcing our troops into a long fight that will test even the might of the United States.

The Rudd Government has also been careful not to tie itself too closely to its climate advisor, Ross Garnaut. However, Garnaut’s proposed targets should be attractive to the Government, and would allow it to say to the voters that it was doing something but to argue to business that it was not imposing excessive burdens.

Ross Garnaut’s new emissions trading report represents a double bonus for the Rudd Government. It is desperately needed. Garnaut has given Rudd more policy flexibility and better political options on the nightmare issue. The unknown test is how Garnaut’s ideas will carry in the international arena.

The lofty ambitions of Ross Garnaut’s draft report in July have been curtailed by economic modelling. Earlier rhetoric that Australia needed to lead global action has been diluted to more modest aspirations: a 5 per cent emissions cut by 2020 in the absence of a comprehensive global deal, or a 10per cent cut if such a deal can be brokered.

The long-awaited Treasury modelling partly unveiled yesterday in Professor Garnaut’s interim report on emissions trading revealed that a 10per cent emissions cut - within a global agreement - would come at a surprisingly low cost for Australia, about 0.1 per cent of GDP a year or a 1.1 per cent reduction in growth by 2020.