Environment Minister Greg Hunt, who co-wrote a pro-carbon price university paper titled "A Tax To Make The Polluter Pay", announced today that legislation to repeal the Clean Energy Future Act would be introduced "in week one of the Parliament".

In response to questions from journalists, he also refused to rule out the prospect that the Liberal government would take the legislation to a double dissolution election.

"It will be our first legislative act", said Mr Hunt to reporters at a parliamentary doorstop in Canberra. "All options are on the table," he said in reference to a question about a double dissolution

The repeal of Australia's carbon tax is opposed by the newly elected leader of the opposition, Bill Shorten, who said in a letter to the Labor Environment Action Network (and reported in The Guardian) that "I am fully committed to maintaining a price on carbon pollution and believe the Labor Party should stand on our record in addressing climate change."

The Environment Minister's language is of course bluster for the media. He and prime minister Tony Abbott have no intention of going to a double dissolution, and I am certain that Mr Hunt and his Liberal Party advisors are relishing the opportunity to attack Labor for not supporting the repeal of the carbon price.

In fact, the doorstop appears to have been held for the sole reason to attack Labor, and to spin the line to the waiting media pack that Labor was ignoring the lessons of the election.

Hunt repeated the falsehood that the election was a referendum on the carbon price (it wasn't) and that Australians, in voting for the Liberal-National party had "voted to terminate the carbon tax" (Australian's support carbon pricing).

This kind of posturing is fairly typical grist for the parliamentary sideshow, and sure enough the evening's radio was full of speculation and fevered discussion about whether the new government, after six years of opposition, would rush back to the polls.

The same nonsense speculation ran rampant in 2009 following the introduction of Rudd Labor's carbon pollution reduction scheme and the destruction of Malcolm Turnbull's leadership by Tony Abbott.

A double dissolution is rarely in the interests of a new government. Since Federation, there have been only six double dissolution elections, where both houses of parliament are dissolved. Double dissolutions are mechanisms for governments to overcome obstructionist senates. In normal elections, only half of the senate is elected, but a double dissolution sees the entire senate dissolved and placed up for election. This has the effect of halving the quota for the senate, making it more likely for the party winning the majority of votes to win more senate seats than the other party, but also increases the likelihood of minor parties being elected. The second effect of a double dissolution is that a joint sitting is held to pass legislation that was blocked by the previous senate.

The only joint sitting of parliament to be held was under Gough Whitlam in 1974, which included the creation of Medibank.

The conditions for a double dissolution are difficult to achieve. Just knocking back legislation in the senate is not enough. There are significant triggers and other constitutional requirements. But above all, the biggest barrier is that they represent risk for new governments that the recently successful party may see its majority reduced.

Of course, Hunt and Abbott will introduce the bill in the first week, and spend the next few months leading up to the change-over of the senate attacking Labor.

However, the Liberal-National party government will be quite happy to wait, and posture, until the new senate sits in July 2014 and Clive Palmer's "Palmer United Party" and the Motoring Enthusiast Party takes up their seats on the cross-benches.

Read the transcript of Greg Hunt's doorstop here.