As the sense of moment faded from the corridors of Parliament House on Wednesday, after that rare moment of bipartisanship evaporated after the debate on race, a group of MPs sat together and considered what a difference a couple of words could make.

What if, they speculated, new senator Fraser Anning had not jumped that final shark and used the term "final solution" in his deliberately incendiary maiden speech which argued for a ban on Muslim immigration and a return to the White Australia Policy?

Would the indignation and passion expressed so eloquently by both sides of politics have been as great if it had "just" been another anti-Muslim rant, seen in a very different frame to the way his speech, as delivered, was received?

Would it have been no more than just another pressing back of the boundaries of what we gradually and grudgingly regard as acceptable — in the name of freedom of speech — in our public discourse?

Both Shorten and Turnbull emerged

Both Shorten and Turnbull emerged, quickly and unambiguously, to condemn the discriminatory messages in Fraser Anning's speech. ( AAP: Lukas Coch )

It has been a week in federal politics of victories and defeats all wrapped up in each other, on race, and on the conjoined issues of energy and climate.

At one level, Senator Anning's speech appeared to have perversely created a rare moment of leadership in Canberra: both Shorten and Turnbull emerged, quickly and unambiguously to condemn the discriminatory messages in the new Senator's speech, and to reaffirm a commitment to non-discriminatory immigration.

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Even Pauline Hanson rose in the Senate to say she was "appalled" by the speech, even if she went on to mainly outline one of the interminable internecine wars within One Nation and its satellites that involved not just Senator Anning, but his speech writer.

In an inspired step, Bill Shorten moved exactly the same resolution rejecting racism that Bob Hawke had moved in 1988 after John Howard had questioned levels of Asian immigration.

The then Opposition, led by Mr Howard, had voted against the resolution then — a development that somehow only seems more shocking now despite the increasing use of dog-whistling and baiting of recent years — with just a few brave souls crossing the floor to vote against it.

The 1988 resolution put a stop for a time on the major parties venturing into the dangerous world of race-based politics, but of course it never completely went away.

This week, by contrast, there was unanimous support for the resolution.

But there must also be a pragmatic certainty that race is going to cause big problems for the major political parties between now and the next election.

It could backfire on Katter

Senators Anning and Hanson are now in competition to try to frame the terms of a debate in which they insist that the voters get a direct say in both the levels of immigration and its composition.

The rest of the Parliament firmly rejecting this idea is not going to make it go away, particularly in the febrile and crucial electorates up and down the Queensland coast, even if there are dark threats that the campaign will rebound on Senator Anning's party "leader" Bob Katter, in the form of redirected Labor preferences and union campaign donations.

Politicians agonised about what to do about Senator Hanson after her 1996 maiden speech. This week's parliamentary debates suggest a much firmer determination for the major parties not to play with this particular fire.

Yet the truth is, it has been happening implicitly — or even obviously in the form of the border and national security debates and in the often raised spectre of African gangs in Melbourne.

So the problem for the Coalition is how it distances itself from the more extreme language of these fringe parties, yet maintains any moral high ground if they engage in their own forms of dog-whistling.

Queensland — and the result in Longman — has unnerved the Coalition and emboldened MPs to carve out policy turf, or at least negotiating space, within the Government.

Ground shifting beneath Turnbull's feet

On Tuesday, the Prime Minister scored a victory in the party room with an endorsement for the National Energy Guarantee.

Sorry, this video has expired Malcolm Turnbull says there is 'overwhelming' support for a National Energy Guarantee

By Friday there were dark threats of ministers resigning over energy policy, of more and more floor crossers possibly emerging from the woodwork.

The ground was shifting beneath the Prime Minister's feet.

The same people who had been lauding the bipartisanship on race were arguing that voting with Labor on an eventual energy deal was beyond the pale, regardless of what that deal might be.

The Prime Minister was talking and trading, preparing to make significant concessions in the interests of ensuring that no-one had an excuse not to back his energy and climate policies.

There is to be a suite of self-described "heavy-handed" measures aimed at the significant market failures in energy that has led to soaring prices.

"If we need to use a big stick to lower prices, we will use a big stick to lower prices," Mr Turnbull said on Thursday, pointing to last year's threat to impose export bans on gas to force suppliers to divert more supply for domestic use.

These new proposals — based on advice from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and to be unveiled for next Tuesday's Coalition party room meeting — are supposed to stop any Coalition waiverers on the National Energy Guarantee from crossing the floor to block it on the back of criticisms the NEG itself does not do enough to address prices.

The Government regards it as crucial that it gets its legislation through with, at worst, just the usual bunch of suspects opposing, but, at best, a unanimous show of support for the policy which means that it doesn't have to rely on Labor, even if it is hard to see it could get by in the Senate without the Opposition's vote.

Trying to make a water-tight case

The Government doesn't just want to lock in its own members here.

It wants to give Labor no excuse to oppose the policy. And it equally will do whatever it takes to ensure the states are on board.

That means the previous "non-negotiable" argument that an emissions target must be legislated has gone — making it hard for both Victoria and federal Labor to oppose the NEG.

Given likely reaction among the conservatives in the Government to this concession, the suite of measures on price and underwriting new power stations will have to form a water-tight case.

It is horse-trading and deal-making on the grandest and most desperate of scales.

The Prime Minister's dream must be that he can turn something so scrappy into another rare moment of unity around the country.

He has his work cut out for him.

Laura Tingle is 7.30's chief political correspondent.