Given that the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change now apparently acknowledges that an unexpected and unexplainable ‘pause’ in global warming occurred between 1997 and today, perhaps it’s time we also pressed ‘pause’ on our fractious policy debate.

A leaked draft of the IPCC’s latest assessment on climate change appears to throw doubt not only on the extent of human culpability for global warming, but the statistical rate of warming; yet again revising it downwards. One graph shows that where climate models predicted temperatures should have risen between about 0.2 and 0.9 degrees C the actual change was only about 0.1, regarded as within the margin of error around zero.

The IPCC apparently also notes that the earth’s climate underwent a similar warming period to ours prior to the middle ages, long before industrialisation was an issue. Throw in the fact that the Antarctic’s ice sheet has grown to record levels where computer modeling forecast the exact opposite and it’s clear that maybe Gaia is in better shape than we thought.

The so-called 2007 ‘mandate’ for the pricing of carbon by both sides of politics was based upon two critical premises: one, that there was an urgent need for reducing emissions regardless of the cost because of the fear of a ‘tipping point’ leading to doomsday alarmist scenarios, and two, that any action undertaken by ourselves was on the condition that the rest of the world followed suit.

When the second of these conditions collapsed in Copenhagen in 2009, not only did Kevin Rudd (at the behest of Julia Gillard) walk away from a price on carbon, so too did mainstream Australia. They’ve never looked back. Indeed, the one premise at the 2010 election that all sides agreed on — and was most famously articulated by both Ms Gillard and her deputy Wayne Swan — was that there would be no taxing (ie pricing) of carbon under either government. The near-hysterical claims by members of the Labor party that pricing carbon is an article of ‘faith’ are laughable; Ms Gillard was apparently forced to go back on her word by the Greens in order to cling to power. The broken promise ultimately cost her the prime minister-ship.

Since 2009 the other pre-condition has also steadily eroded. The doomsday scenarios so vividly painted by the IPCC, Tim Flannery, Al Gore and other dissemblers has been proven wrong both in science and in observable fact. From the infamous University of East Anglia email through to the imminent IPCC release, the danger has been overstated, with ‘modelling’ that has repeatedly proven flawed.

A healthy democracy demands a government with affordable policies and a viable opposition with credible alternatives. At the moment, on this issue we have neither. Tony Abbott’s Direct Action policy, at huge cost, will reduce pollution and improve our landscape and rivers. This is to be applauded, but is of little consequence to global emissions, and will make not a jot of difference to global warming. Labor, meanwhile, are foolishly recommitting themselves to an ETS mechanism, which contains alarming economic dangers (should the price be artificially boosted by the Europeans) and for which the electorate has shown their disdain.

Time to call a stop to the madness. Or at least a pause, until the facts are clearer and a sensible consensus for global action has genuinely emerged.

The missing woman

Tony Abbott is to be roundly applauded for his new cabinet, in which competence and experience are clearly to the fore. The inclusion of the nation’s first ever German-speaking Belgian Finance Minister proved what many had long hoped for: that this would be a cabinet chosen on merit and ability rather than petty factional deals. Despite his often hard-to-comprehend accent, Mathias Cormann is an outstanding media performer courtesy of his ability to cut to the chase. He will partly make up for the absence of Sophie Mirabella, who is a great loss to this government. Equally, we would like to congratulate Josh Frydenburg, Jamie Briggs and the other rising stars of the party.

Alas, our enthusiasm must be tempered by the exclusion of Kelly O’Dwyer from the front benches. She is a passionate and articulate advocate for the government and a star Liberal, who has no problem holding her own against the typical 1- 5 ratio of left-wing media panels such as the ABC’s Q&A.

It would be a great shame if, as rumoured, it was her skepticism of Mr Abbott’s paid parental leave scheme, on display in the Liberal partyroom, that saw her being passed by. Let us reassure the Prime Minister that if this gossip is indeed true, she is by no means alone among Liberals in questioning this extravagant slab of middle-class welfare. Indeed, her insights on this very issue, among many others, would have been invaluable. And, er, she is a woman.