FEDERAL politics descended into madness over the past week.

The Liberal Party went into meltdown on emissions trading and finished up in a messy leadership crisis.

The catalyst for this extraordinary set of events was a deal done by former party leader Malcolm Turnbull to amend the Rudd Government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

At an eight-hour Coalition meeting last week, the Nationals and many Liberals sceptical about climate change and emissions trading said "no deal".

After the meeting, Mr Turnbull "made the call" that he had party-room support for the deal. But his reading was hotly disputed, prompting the "sceptics" to call a leadership spill, which was defeated but with a solid minority in favour.

The "sceptics" - ie, the party's conservatives - persisted.

They wanted the CPRS vote delayed to allow for a Senate inquiry, but Mr Turnbull refused.

This prompted a string of resignations from his frontbench and another leadership challenge, this time from conservative Tony Abbott.

Moderate Joe Hockey, who backed the CPRS deal and called for a free vote, also came into the picture.

In the end, Abbott prevailed over Turnbull by a vote.

What a mess. Blame is being laid at the feet of the "sceptics", who've been clearly prepared to do anything to stop action on climate change and/or to roll Mr Turnbull.

But Mr Turnbull and his lieutenants must also share the blame.

They agreed to play on the Government's terms - an end-of-year deadline - then having done a far-reaching deal, they tried to ram it through the party room.

Then Mr Turnbull declared victory when, despite shadow cabinet support, more than half his backbench had said "no".

The Government also contributed to the madness.

It insisted on an artificial deadline of having the CPRS voted on before a climate change summit in Copenhagen this month, knowing the summit is only looking at emissions targets, not policies.

And last week, while the Libs were imploding, it continued to press them to honour Mr Turnbull's deal to rush it through the Senate, warning against any further delay - even though the CPRS won't start until 2011.

The CPRS is a complex beast few understand. It's time to forget the politics and go back to the policy drawing board.