It's not often that the media is more interested in the policy, or potential policy, of an opposition rather than a government. Especially when the government in question is not even a third of the way through its inaugural term. However, this seems to be the case in the lead-up to today's shadow cabinet deliberations and tomorrow's meeting of the Coalition parties. These get-togethers have been given greater attention due to the success (so far) of the merger of the Liberal and National parties in Queensland to form the LNP.

It is hardly surprising that the Coalition is divided on what should be its response to the complicated issue of climate change. This is particularly so when the Rudd Government has yet to provide full details of its planned approach - they will not be available until the publication of the white paper scheduled for October.

So far, Labor has seemed united on this matter. Yet you only have to speak in private to Labor MPs to realise there are some agnostics in the ALP who are not true believers in the stand taken by Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Wayne Swan, Lindsay Tanner, Penny Wong and Peter Garrett. Moreover, it is evident there is concern with the Prime Minister's policy within the wider-based labour movement and particularly among the centre-right leadership of some trade unions.

The media's focus on the Coalition with respect to climate change can be readily explained. First, the apparent difference between the Opposition Leader, Brendan Nelson, on the one hand, and Malcolm Turnbull and Greg Hunt on the other, gets noticed because it is viewed in the light of the current leadership tension within the Liberal Party. Second, the overwhelming majority of journalists who report politics and the environment are true believers in the humans-cause-climate-change thesis and maintain that Australia should take a lead in reducing carbon emissions. They hold to this belief irrespective of the position taken by the developed world (including the United States and Canada) and the developing nations (including China and India).

The level of intensity among those reporting and/or commenting on the debate is surprisingly high from members of a profession who traditionally pride themselves on scepticism, if not outright cynicism.

Writing in The Age on Friday, Tim Colebatch commented that the Liberal Party has turned itself "into a battleground between those who believe that Australia should do its share to tackle global warming and those who deny that global warming exists". On Radio 702 in Sydney yesterday, Michael Brissenden, The 7.30 Report's political commentator, also depicted Liberal MPs who do not support an emissions trading scheme by 2010 (the Rudd proposal) or by 2012 (John Howard's intention when prime minister) as denialists.

Michelle Grattan, heard each morning on Radio National Breakfast and a constant critic of the Coalition since about 2001, has bagged Nelson for exploiting "populist fears" for stating that Australia should not move on an emissions trading scheme until other nations have indicated they will reduce emissions. The word populist, unlike popular, is a term of abuse. But yesterday Grattan herself became confused when she acknowledged that "it's not totally clear on this issue what the populist view is". She had in mind recent polling which suggests the Prime Minister's stand on emissions trading has the support of a clear majority of electors.

The barracking among large sections of the media overlooks several facts. You do not have to be a so-called "denier" of human-induced climate change to maintain that it is bad policy for Australia - which produces just over 1 per cent of global emissions - to be at, or near, the front of the world in reducing emissions. Also, an argument is not sustained by labelling those who disagree with you as "populist". Some populist positions are quite sound; others are not. In any event, it is the climate-change true believers whose views are in fashion. Whether they remain fashionable could determine the outcome of the 2010 election.

Nelson appears to lack the gravitas to become prime minister. Yet his position on climate change - which apparently is supported by the former treasurer Peter Costello - makes political sense. More importantly, it provides the only feasible platform on which the Coalition could prevail over Rudd at the next election. That's why it is likely that the Liberals' deputy leader, Julie Bishop, Turnbull and Hunt will back the Nelson position, which seems to have the support of Nick Minchin, Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott.

Whatever the outcome of this week's proceedings, the Coalition's political difficulties seem set to continue. They will not be resolved in any meaningful sense until Costello decides on his political future and announces whether he will stay on or quit politics. In the meantime, the Liberals can only develop some policy distance from Rudd and defend the Howard/Costello legacy.

Neither task is easy. On the Channel Nine Sunday program, the reporter Jane Hansen bagged the Howard government for detaining women and children asylum seekers. The criticism was compelling. What was missing from Hansen's report was any acknowledgement that Paul Keating's Labor government initiated the policy of mandatory detention for asylum seekers. In 1995, the mid-point of Keating's term as prime minister, there were some 350 children in detention. Now that Sunday is to be junked, Hansen looks well qualified for a position with Radio National.

Defending the Howard/Costello legacy is one challenge for the Coalition. Winning in 2010 is a more difficult one. Yet, whatever its problems, the creation of the LNP sends out a message that - in Queensland at least - the political conservatives really want to win.

Gerard Henderson is executive director of the Sydney Institute.