The molten metal moment, the minister opined, was when the independents sided with Labor. That is where the analogy ends. In the sequel to The Terminator, the cyborg came back but had changed sides. In the election sequel, Abbott returned as hell-bent as ever on exterminating the Gillard government. His frontbench reshuffle, in which he made only one personnel change to the shadow cabinet, and his decision to ''fine-tune'' the Coalition's policy platform rather than overhaul it, were both signals that he believed he and his team were on the right track, that they were unlucky on August 21, and that they just had to keep pressing and the government would fall. Last week's decision to tear up the deal the Coalition signed with the independents about providing a paired deputy speaker was further confirmation that Abbott is set on a clinical path to engineer the government's downfall. The benefit of welshing on a deal outweighed the cost of being regarded as having broken your word. After Alex Somlyay was brought to heel over the weekend by his superiors, Liberal sources assure there are no more potential rats who could cut a side deal with Labor in which they would receive the numbers for the deputy speakership in return for guaranteeing Labor supply and confidence. Barring any late surprises, when Parliament resumes tomorrow, Labor's Harry Jenkins will be appointed speaker and Labor's majority on the floor will be a threadbare 75 seats to 74.

If a Labor MP or supportive independent misses a vote, Jenkins can save the day with his casting vote to break a 74-74 deadlock. Beyond that, there will be trouble, and so the Terminator approach will continue. Pairing is a gentlemanly convention in which one side agrees to take one of its MPs out of play when an opposing member has a reasonable excuse for missing a vote. Now that every number matters, the Liberals say they will grant a pair only when the absence is due to sickness, another compelling personal reason, or duties perceived to be in the national interest. The Coalition will decide what is in the national interest. If the Prime Minister is at an international leaders' forum, such as the G20, she will be fine, assured a senior Liberal yesterday. But as a far as ministers missing Parliament because their duties have them elsewhere, forget it. ''If it's just a forum on whaling, then no way,'' he said. Already, Treasurer Wayne Swan has had to decline an invitation this week to address a Forbes magazine gathering of 400 of the world's top executives because the Coalition would not give him a pair. ''Bad luck, his job is to be here and answer questions,'' the senior Liberal said.

Pairs will be granted on a case-by-case basis, and that applies for the Trade Minister, the Defence Minister and the Foreign Affairs Minister as well. Housing Minister Tanya Plibersek is due to have a baby in a little over a week. She has yet to be guaranteed a pair while on maternity leave, although it is likely this will eventuate. Overall, this government is going to find it very hard to do its job. The ill feeling between the main parties is already so intense that Joe Hockey has begun citing Labor's treatment of Robert Menzies during the war to rationalise the Coalition's approach. In 1940 Menzies led a hung parliament in which the main parties had 36 each and there were two independents. Labor leader John Curtin declined the offer to form a unity wartime government, says Hockey. This difficult attitude, not to mention Menzies leaving for London - Hockey is trying to find out whether Curtin gave him a pair - saw Labor in power after a year. The opposition believes that if Julia Gillard lasts that long, she will have done well. ''People don't understand how frantic it's going to be,'' said the Liberal.

The hung parliament was supposed to usher in a new era of co-operation. It threatens to do the opposite. Loading One of Abbott's more senior frontbenchers laughed during a recent private conversation when reminded of all the palaver during the negotiations with the independents about kind and gentle. Rather than the Terminator, he preferred to delve further back in history: ''As Clausewitz said, 'war is merely a continuation of politics'.''