Anyone who says nature abhors a vacumn has never read the Adelaide Sunday Mail. 112 pages of nothing, plus multiple vacumny inserts.

I bought a copy yesterday for the second time in my life. I had breakfast at McDonalds, and glanced through the Sunday Mail while munching my hotcakes.

I was interested in their poll on the ETS and the Liberal Party leadership. I didn’t have a pen to write the figures down there,  so I had to go to newsagent and buy a copy.

Then I lost it. Darn.

Well, I wasn’t going to buy another copy, so here goes from memory:

In relation to the ETS/CPRS/RAT scheme the poll said that a substantial majority of voters, both Liberal and Labor, want the implementation of an ETS delayed till after the Copenhagen bullfest.

Both Liberal and Labor voters said they needed more information about the ETS.

They certainly do. The mainstream media has failed to provide the public with any substantive information on the costs of an ETS (huge) or its environmental benefits (none).

On the Liberal leadership, Joe Hockey was in the lead, with Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott slightly and equally behind.

An unsurprising result. Turnbull is not a viable leader for the Liberal Party (and never has been, in my view). Hockey is affable and charismatic.

But as I said two days ago, the current strife in the Liberal Party is not about personality. It is about policy. It would be madness to appoint as leader someone who is, like Turnbull, unable to distinguish his policies from those of Labor, simply because people like him.

Leadership isn’t about being liked. It is about doing the right thing for the right reasons, and convincing others to do the same. Despite his earlier dithering, Tony Abbott is the man for the job 

Whoever leads, the future of the Liberal Party depends on clear enunciation of policies developed on the basis of evidence, not on the basis of wishful (or doomsday) thinking.

So Joe, if you do get the nod, don’t sell your soul, just use your brain.