IT would be easy to dismiss New England independent Tony Windsor as a whining, whinging wimp and a rat, but he has now assumed national importance in the carbon tax debate.
He has had undeserved relevance thrust upon him.
Last week, Windsor earned the opprobrium of all sensible MPs and public figures around the nation when he connived with Channel 7?s Mark Riley to publicise a purported threat he claimed to have received.
In what was one of the more disgraceful media moments in a year already marred just two months in by Riley?s attempt to smear Opposition leader Tony Abbott with a false and innuendo-laden report on the death of a young Australian soldier, Windsor said on Tuesday he had received his first-ever death threat.
It didn?t help that Riley?s report added false claims about the shooting of a US congresswoman, dishonestly implying that the accused in that horror had been influenced by so-called shock-jocks and right-wing political commentators.
A caller said, apparently in relation to Windsor?s role in assisting the Gillard Government develop its global-warming strategy as a member of its Multi Party Climate Change Committee.
Only those who believe that humans are responsible for global warming were welcome on the committee and the Coalition declined to nominate any members.
Windsor had indicated his interest in jumping aboard even before the announcement of its formation.
Chaired by Prime Minister Gillard, the co-deputy chairmen are Treasurer Wayne Swan, Climate Change Minister Greg Combet and Greens deputy leader Christine Milne. Greens leader Bob Brown is a member, as are Windsor and his partner-in-betrayal, Lyne independent Rob Oakeshott.
Labor?s Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change Mark Dreyfus and Melbourne Greens MP Adam Bandt assist the committee.
While abusive calls such as that received by Windsor are to be deplored, he has shown either an extraordinary naivete or a deeply manipulative streak by going public with this call.
Even setting aside his later admission that it was not the first such threat he had received, it was the height of irresponsibility to attempt to elicit public sympathy by publicising the incident and encourage every other nutter to mutter similar garbage.
Conservatives have lived quietly with far worse for decades and so serious were the threats made to ministers in the successful Howard government, Peter Reith, Philip Ruddock and Peter Costello, that the Australian Federal Police believed they needed close personal security.
Nor should the unbridled rage kindled by commentators from the ABC and Fairfax media against former One Nation MP Pauline Hanson be forgotten in Windsor?s moment of highly dramatised fear.
What is of far greater importance than the unsolicited telephone call is the reality that Windsor potentially holds the power to halt Gillard?s carbon tax.
There is no doubting the fact that this is what the overwhelming majority of voters in his electorate and across the nation want, according to every poll.
But Windsor, like his compatriot Oakeshott, has a poor track record when it comes to reflecting the wishes of voters.
There are 150 members in the lower house, Labor has 71 and enjoys the support of the Greens? Bandt, Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie and Oakeshott, giving Labor a total of 74 votes on the floor of the house.
Oakeshott can be discounted as a potential Coalition supporter: he is bogged down in bureaucracy and process and lost in the fog of his own self-importance.
Labor also provides the Speaker, Harry Jenkins, who ? under the Constitution ? only gets a deciding vote if the votes on the floor of the House are tied.
The Coalition has 72 members, and enjoys the support of West Australian country independent Tony Crook and Queensland independent Bob Katter, giving it 74 votes.
Assuming Windsor?s vote either way would be the decider, he becomes by default the key pea on the carbon tax when Parliament resumes on March 21 for one week before rising for the six-week pre-Budget break.
This is Windsor?s dilemma. As a member of the Multi Party Climate Change Fraud Committee he has indicated he is committed to the anthropogenic global warming cult, but in recent statements he has been rowing back from this commitment.
Just last Thursday, he told Melbourne?s 3AW that he would wait till the Productivity Commission reported on the carbon tax implications to international competition before deciding how he would vote.
This is a theme he has repeated, saying in another interview: ?What we have to determine is what is happening in the rest of the world.
?If the rest of the world is doing nothing, why bother? We can?t save the world on our own.?
Earlier, in yet another interview, he attempted to dissociate himself from Gillard?s much-publicised announcement on the carbon tax saying: ?People assume because I was photographed standing there with the Prime Minister and the Greens I am for a carbon tax.?
True, people would think that. He wasn?t in handcuffs, he didn?t appear to have been coerced into the photo opportunity, he was standing there grinning with the rest of the carbon dioxide taxing fools looking pleased to be part of the gig.
But, as he added: ?In my view, there may not be a carbon tax.?
He has also pointedly noted that he voted against climate change legislation the last time it was presented to Parliament.
There is even one theory, far-fetched though it sounds, that Gillard herself may be secretly encouraging Windsor to vote down the carbon dioxide tax because it is poisoning Labor?s numbers everywhere except in the People?s Republic of Canberra.
The theorists say that should he kill it, and liberate Labor from this millstone, suitable enticing and comfortable appointments may be found to accommodate the soon-to-be-former MP for New England.
It?s a big fetch.
However, the beauty of such a deal for Gillard would be that it would keep the Greens in the tent and leave Windsor to do the dirty work for her.
As she jets to Washington and later to a royal wedding, such a deal would have obvious appeal for an embattled prime minister.
