JUST after Julia Gillard cobbled together this minority government in 2010, I had a quirky thought. Imagine if the opposition simply decided it was going to behave like it was the government. Imagine if it put together its own legislative agenda and proceeded to pass it.

After all, the government doesn't pass legislation: the Parliament does, and the opposition occupies a huge chunk of it. Convince a few crossbenchers of an idea and you can make it law. In a Parliament this tight, the difference between government and opposition is more an illusion than we realise.

Yes, there would be complications. Getting, for example, Greg Combet as Minister for Climate Change to implement Tony Abbott's Direct Action policy faithfully might have been difficult. But consider how markedly different the entire political environment would be if the contest was one of achievement. Imagine what next year's election campaign would be like if the opposition was heading into it with a stronger legislative record than the government's.

Of course, Tony Abbott took a completely different course. He bet on the fragility of the minority government, and backed his ability to bring it down. His opposition has pursued every scandal and half-scandal relentlessly in the hope that something would bite, which is the only reason he (or anyone) really cares about Craig Thomson's union credit card or Peter Slipper's text messages.

And this week we have seen the logical extension of this approach in the most extraordinary way. Tony Abbott has accused the Prime Minister of being a criminal off the back of the AWU saga, without explaining exactly what the evidence against her is. Once upon a time that would have been considered outrageous. These days it's just a variation on a familiar theme. It's how we do politics now.