Transport Minister Catherine King does not usually do parliamentary attacks, but via a "Dorothy Dixer' on Wednesday about the fuel crisis, she lined up the opposition's cheap tactics.

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Referring to a resolution to force the Commonwealth to compensate the states for public transport fares, King revealed how the Coalition stunt in the Senate had flamed out when Lib-Nat senators scarpered to avoid voting on their own motion.

"It was, frankly, like watching a game of follow the leader. The only problem was they couldn't decide which leader! There are now more people with 'leader 'in their title in the Coalition than there are women sitting on the frontbench in the House."

King's gibe about chaotic leadership was a fair point and garnered plenty of laughs.

But questions over leadership and tactics can cut both ways.

Households and businesses are less interested in parliamentary theatrics than the triple whammy of inflation, rising interest rates, and the wanton madness of an oil-shock imposed, without prior consultation by our dependable friend.

Indeed, let's be even clearer. The world has been plunged headlong into its worst ever energy crisis by a plainly unfit American president who has spent the last 14 months threatening, tariffing and belittling US allies.

Donald Trump is an agent of harm and chaos. Nothing is reliable. His 48-hour ultimatum has been extended out to 10 days; negotiations are happening but indirectly; US troops are being positioned; and Israel is a law unto itself. Right now, it is destroying vital infrastructure and taking territory in southern Lebanon.

The Albanese Labor government? Once again, it looks slow and appears to be hoping it will all go away soon. A second National Cabinet meeting is set for Monday - more than a month after the crisis began.

Australia, it insists, wants a de-escalation and a diplomatic solution.

On Friday, Trump again named Australia after lashing out at Britain's Keir Starmer for refusing to help clear the Strait of Hormuz: "Australia too, Australia was not great, I was a little surprised by Australia".

Both AUKUS partners have resisted Trump's entreaties, but their passivity bespeaks only weakness. It is the defence of national interest in the tone of apology.

Where is the plain-spoken assessment of this crazy conflict which has ravaged our economy, slammed vulnerable households, shuttered businesses, weakened the budget bottom line, and limited what was to be the government's ambitious second term reform agenda?

Ironically, seeing as King raised opposition leadership, there is one among the coterie of Coalition figures who is actually showing some signs: Andrew Hastie - former SAS commander, and now deputy leader of the opposition in the House of Representatives.

Earlier this week, Hastie swam against the tide regarding talk that Labor could curb tax breaks on investment properties to reduce intergenerational barriers to home ownership.

"I am sympathetic to that view," Hastie told the ABC's Patricia Karvelas, bluntly, in a clear departure from Angus Taylor's line. "I think there's a lot of young Australians - I'm 43, I own one property, no investment properties ... I want to fight for my generation and the generations below ... people feel like they have no control over their lives, and they want to take back control, and they see the housing market, particularly, as rigged against them. And so, there's a policy debate to be had, but the politics have already bolted. Young Australians want to tear down the system because it doesn't work for them, and if we're not responsive to that as a party, we may well become extinct - that's the reality."

Get that? The politics have already shifted and if we don't respond, we're dead. The glaring absence of weasel words here is really the point - Hastie is modelling a new kind of major party communication which cuts through the stock-standard blather.

His approach attenuates traditional party uniformity with his own worldly experience and considered analysis. It appears also to articulate a nuanced nationalism - one capable of transcending the narrow, culturally right-wing barracking to which One Nation, Clive Palmer and some hard-line Liberals have succumbed.

To demonstrate this point, consider what Hastie refreshingly calls "Trump's war".

"This is Donald Trump's choice ... and I should remind you that One Nation has been pretty strong in supporting Donald Trump's war - that's not a point that's made very often, but I want to make it to your listeners today," he told 2GB's Mark Levy.

Clearly taken aback, the rampaging Levy pressed him on the possibility that he, Hastie, (perish the thought) did not support the US-Israeli war on Iran: "Well, I didn't get a choice. Australians didn't get a choice. We weren't briefed, it just started, and now we're dealing with the consequences."

Bullseye. Australians know it. Pauline won't say it because her internal debate ended years ago. Ideologically, and tribally, she's firmly signed up as an anti-immigration Trumpist and a Faragist.

Mainstream Labor and Liberals wouldn't frontally question a US president either, even when he is demonstrably unhinged and his actions visit material damage on this country.

Hastie shows no such reluctance. He is, I suspect, the next Liberal prime minister, if there is to be one.

Mark Kenny is The Canberra Times' political analyst and a professor at the ANU's Australian Studies Institute. He hosts the Democracy Sausage podcast. He writes a column every Sunday.

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