The Prime Minister is among them. "Scott is trying to move, but he has to be very careful managing the change," says another Liberal MP. "We've lost three prime ministers to climate policy, so you can understand that." The "most dramatic example", said an MP, was Morrison's joint announcement a week ago with NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian of a $2 billion deal to help NSW cut carbon emissions and increase gas output as an "important transition fuel". Illustration: Jim Pavlidis Credit: The Liberal MP poses: "He used the word transition, but transition from what and to what? It's quite clearly from coal to renewables." But Morrison doesn't actually spell it out so explicitly. The deal with NSW was the first federal-state deal in what is intended to be a series, ultimately including all the states. Morrison said this week that "it is accepted that climate change has impacted Australia, and that we're in for longer, hotter, drier summers ... The issue is what you do about it, the practical actions that keep people safe, and emissions reductions, land clearing. All of these things are critical to that."

One of his Liberal colleagues says: "Morrison is shifting. The question is how far he is prepared to go." His freedom to move will be determined largely by sentiment in his party and the Coalition. What the public saw this week was a Liberal senator questioning the reality of man-made climate change. Jim Molan was ridiculed for saying on the ABC's Q&A show on Monday night that "I'm not relying on evidence" in forming his opinion. But what happened out of public sight on Tuesday was more telling. When Liberal MPs and senators met for their first party gathering of the year, Queensland MP and former medical doctor Andrew Laming rose to his feet and eloquently rebuked climate deniers for arguing against the science. He was implicitly chastising Molan and Craig Kelly. When he finished, Laming was applauded. No one contested his point. This was seen as a sign of new mood in the Liberal Party, no longer Tony Abbott's.

Climate policy dominated the next meeting, when the Liberals were joined by the Nationals MPs and senators for the first Coalition party meeting of the year. There was a clash. Strikingly, it was a clash dividing the Liberals from the Nationals. There was no sign of division within the Liberals. Loading At this meeting, the first sign of the new mood in the Liberal Party was the speech by the woman who replaced Kelly O'Dwyer as the member for the Melbourne seat of Higgins, Katie Allen. Allen is a former professor of science and a former doctor of paediatrics at the Royal Children’s Hospital. Needless to say, she is a fan of science. She began by congratulating Morrison on his speech at the National Press Club last week when he set out the way forward as "technology, not taxes". "I'm very interested in supporting new technology to achieve a carbon-neutral future," she said. "As a scientist, I would like to see all technology options on the table."

In a piece in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday, she explains how this might include new-generation nuclear power. Her key point is that she'll support any tech pathway, so long as it leads to the destination of a "carbon-neutral future". Loading This is a radical advance for the Liberal Party. By countenancing nuclear, she's trying to bring the Coalition's conservatives along for the journey. Allen was supported by other Liberal moderates. The member for North Sydney, Trent Zimmerman, said "the member for Warringah should be in the party room, but won't be unless we take climate change seriously", a reference to Tony Abbott's defeat. Zimmerman soon took to the airwaves and spoke to the ABC's Patricia Karvelas about using new technology to achieve "a carbon-neutral economy". Others to join the Coalition party room debate in favour of more action on climate change were Fiona Martin and Tim Wilson. The Nationals had just faced a leadership bid. The leader, Michael McCormack, survived a challenge by former leader Barnaby Joyce. But there was nothing chastened about Joyce or his band of followers. They took up the argument against.

Joyce and David Gillespie said people in their electorates didn't bring up climate change, "so we shouldn't be misled by the media and the Green left" into thinking this was a bigger issue than it really was. The most strident was the Nationals' George Christensen. The whole thing was "an assault by inner-city lefties and we shouldn't be worrying about them at all". So Morrison's trick is to make the lump of coal disappear, but no sudden moves. The Nationals leader is attempting a magic trick of his own. McCormack is hypnotising Australia, using his special skills to put everyone to sleep. Loading A member of the voting public this week told me that her nickname for the man she could recall only by his title, not his name, was Dial Tone. "Because he's about as interesting as one," she explained. 2GB radio's Ben Fordham said of McCormack that "he could bore for Australia, he's a gold medallist in the boring department". So it works. Morrison hopes McCormack will succeed in putting the Nationals back to sleep. He wants the Nationals to be quiet, submissive and thoroughly somnolent, their traditional state in the Coalition.

But as they learned anew this week, Morrison and McCormack have a problem. Just as McCormack's hypnosis is taking effect – "You're getting sleepy, sleepy" – Barnaby's troupe bursts into view, like clowns sent in to change the mood, waking everyone, saying funny things and setting off fireworks in each others pants. That's what happened this week. And it's set to continue. In staving off Joyce's challenge, McCormack has rewarded his supporters with all the spoils. His backers won posts in the ministry, while Barnaby's have all been left to languish on the backbench. Loading As Barnaby has explained to colleagues, "it got more difficult for Morrison this week because McCormack went out and picked all his friends for the ministry. He is too stupid. He should have embraced people from both camps. He should have learned from Lincoln. You can't ask for discipline if you give no recognition or respect to the people on the losing side". Barnaby & Friends can now be expected to bring forward private members' bills on things like the creation of senators to represent the regions, coal-fired power plants for Queensland, and nuclear power. All of this will be an unwelcome disruption for Morrison. And quite spoil McCormack's hypnosis trick.

And the new Greens leader, Adam Bandt? It's not really a magic trick, but he's having a go at setting his hair on fire. Contrary to reports, he's so far hewing closely to the policies he inherited from Richard Di Natale, who this week made the surprise announcement that he's quitting politics, pleading exhaustion. The policies that Bandt is giving new emphasis, such as a levy on coal, oil and gas producers of $1 per tonne of carbon dioxide emitted, are actually years-old policies, given a new polish. So, in the absence of new policies, he's trying out inflammatory language to get fresh attention. Loading He's already got a fair bit of attention, calling Morrison a "climate killer" and "climate criminal" and saying that big business makes its money by "killing people". But your hair can only burn for so long. It'll lose its attention-getting power. Unless he sets his beard alight next. Anthony Albanese is attempting the ever-amazing trick of sawing someone in half. Traditionally, it was a woman in the box smiling through her dismemberment to the astonishment of the audience, but it's 2020 so Albo has put Bill Shorten and his 300 policies from the last election into the box.