Remembrance of things past, dead, buried and cremated recalled by Tim Blair.

Remember when Malcolm Turnbull vowed to explain everything?

You build confidence by explaining, as I said earlier, explaining what the problem is, making sure people understand it, and then setting out the options for dealing with it …

That’s the approach I have taken: Laying out what the issues are, getting the facts straight, explaining that and then presenting a path forward and then making the case for that path forward. My firm belief is that to be a successful leader in 2015 – perhaps at any time – you have to be able to bring people with you by respecting their intelligence in the manner you explain things.

Well, Turnbull’s government now seems to have moved on from that explaining phase:

Eyebrows were raised after the Turnbull government shifted its stance overnight when Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop signed up to a New Zealand-led declaration at the Paris climate summit backing the use of international carbon markets in tackling climate change.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott shunned the use of international carbon permits, once saying that: “money that shouldn’t be going offshore into dodgy carbon farms in Equatorial Guinea and Kazakhstan”.

But in a speech on Wednesday, Ms Bishop said: “We recognise that international carbon markets are a key part of the global effort to reduce emissions”.

Nobody explained this to Liberal MP Craig Kelly:

WHAT?

We’re going to start buying “international carbon permits” … ?

I must have ducked off to the bathroom when that was discussed in the partyroom, because I can’t recall any such discussions.

Surely this can’t be right?