Will Abbott's victory trigger an election?
When waded into the surf at the weekend, , few would have expected him to emerge 48 hours later as the leader of the Australian opposition.
As late as Monday, Mr Abbott himself was talking about withdrawing from the race for the leadership of the , since support seemed to be coalescing around the ever jovial Joe Hockey, the shadow treasurer, who was widely viewed as the one figure who could unite a fractured party.
Yet, shortly after I pressed "send" on the last blog, Mr Hockey indicated that he would grant Liberal lawmakers a '"conscience vote" on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), the hotly-contested legislation that has split the Liberals in two.
On a matter of high principle, Mr Hockey was offering pragmatism in place of a policy - and it cost him the leadership of the party.
MPs had warmed to the idea of a compromise candidate, but the climate change sceptics gave his compromise stance on the ETS the iciest of cold shoulders.
So to the surprise of many, Mr Hockey was eliminated in the first round of voting, and the leadership came down to a head-to-head contest between Mr Abbott, a climate change sceptic, and Malcolm Turnbull, whose deal with the government to get the ETS passed into law before the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen next week sparked the crisis.
By the narrowest of margins - just one solitary vote - Mr Abbott carried the day.
Less then an hour later, he appeared before reporters vowing to block the ETS legislation from becoming law - even if it puts in the hands of Kevin Rudd a trigger to call a snap election.
"Oppositions are not there to get legislation through - oppositions are there to hold the government to account," he said defiantly. "Now, as leader, I am not frightened of an election, and I am not frightened of an election on this issue."
Many moderate Liberals are terrified. Mr Turnbull had warned that his once-dominant party would face an electoral catastrophe if it appeared before the electorate as the party of climate-change scepticism.
And soon we might get to test that proposition. If the Senate blocks the measure again - as now seems likely - Mr Rudd could go to the polls, after dissolving both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
In what is already being billed as "the climate-change election", most observers predict a lop-sided majority for Labor, if not a landslide.
Tony Abbott is an endlessly intriguing and entertaining figure.
A devout Catholic who once considered a life in the priesthood, he regularly peppers his public comments with profanities.
Indeed, one of the early challenges of covering his leadership has been deciding which of his most memorable quotes are fit for broadcast.
For a start, he's dismissed climate change as "absolute crap" - yes for Radio 4's Today programme, but no for the World Service - while at the end of a particularly accident-prone day during the 2007 election he conceded to viewers of the ABC that "shit happens".
Aged 52, he was born in London of Australian parents, and was awarded a boxing Blue during his time as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University.
He's also an ardent monarchist, and a fervent Howardite. Memorably, he once described himself as the "ideological love child" of John Howard and Bronwyn Bishop, a rather matronly Liberal backbencher.
He'll face a particularly hard job wooing female voters, many of whom reject his stance on abortion.
By electing Mr Abbott, many commentators think that the Liberals have entered a sort of twilight zone - that they risk becoming a fringe party.
One of the reasons that Mr Rudd ousted Mr Howard at the last federal election was because of the former prime minister's repeated refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
And, if called, a snap election would likely come at the end of what's expected to be particularly severe bushfire season - which environmentalists will cite as offering further evidence of global warming in what is already the world's driest continent.
Somewhat apologetically, I'll end with a cliche. But at least it's a seasonal cliche. By installing Mr Abbott, have the turkeys just voted for Christmas?
UPDATE, Wednesday 2 December, 0530 GMT: So the answer to the question "Will Abbott's victory trigger an election?" is "not for the time being". By a vote of 41 to 33, the Senate voted down the government's emissions trading scheme today, and since it is the second time that the upper house has rejected the measure it hands the government the trigger for a snap, double dissolution election - that's to say, all the MPs in the House of Representatives and all the Senators in the upper house would have to seek re-election.
But the prime minister hasn't proved trigger-happy. In the absence of Kevin Rudd, who was still on his way back from Washington, the Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced that the ETS bill will be introduced for the third time in February, when parliament reconvenes after the Christmas break. The festive period, she said, would give the "calmer heads" in the Liberal Party time to consider their position and act in the national interest. It rules out a snap election.
It's a smart political strategy, for it will highlight and possibly deepen the fissures within Liberal ranks between those who think the party has no other choice but to support an ETS - John Howard proposed an ETS, after all - and the climate change sceptics and deniers. Labor is hoping that a weak Liberal party will be even be even more fragile by the time that parliament resumes. And, remember, that trigger can be pulled at any time the government wants.
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