The Opposition's job is to oppose

The Sunday Telegraph helpfully reminds Malcolm Turnbull of this basic point, in an editorial yesterday:

Let's recap what is being proposed here: a major reform of the nation's economy that, for the first time, will put a price on the carbon emissions that underpin Australia's prosperity.

The Coalition will not be implementing this. The Rudd Government will.

It is Mr Turnbull's job to hold the Government to account, to expose the flaws in the scheme and to speak up in the interests of Coalition voters.

Instead, he was suckered into negotiating the shape of the ETS by the Government in a classic example of the kind of wedge politics that Labor used to accuse John Howard of playing in government.

He shouldn't have been co-opted.

The Opposition should have simply waited until the legislation was presented and decided on its stance. Instead, Mr Turnbull was too keen to distance himself from the Howard Government and the allegations that the Liberals were slow to act on climate change.

He forgot that governments govern and oppositions oppose. Now he has been forced to stake his leadership on the success of a Government initiative.

It is needless and strange and a position in which he should never have allowed himself to be put in the first place.

Read it here.