So, after all the commentary, all the letters sent between Ankara and Canberra, all the defiant statements – not to mention $2 million wasted by the South Australian government - the UN climate summit won't be hosted by Adelaide next year.

That's the upshot of the long-running game of who'll blink first played by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

And when it came to it, Albo has been caught out with Erdoğan, staring him down.

And while the Australian PM must have been hit for six by the news, it does beg the question of what was in it for Australia anyway?

The environmental lobby were certainly keen to see the summit come to Australia next year, but one suspects their motivations might have been a bit different from the politicians'.

The likes of WWF and Greenpeace would have loved the eyes of the world to swivel to Australia and in so doing heap pressure on the country's leaders to ensure Australia's climate and energy policies were all in order.

But would the government and industry really have wanted all that attention?

The country's record on emissions isn't exactly glowing and so one wonders whether Albanese and his climate change and energy minister Chris Bowen might have actually decided to let this one go through to the keeper?

Even when they tried to bowl over Erdoğan with the idea of sharing the hosting duties, were Albo and Bowen really conscious of the scrutiny it would have placed on the country?

But as Bowen pulls up the stumps from his time at COP30 in Brazil and comes back to Australia, he does so with a new feather in his cap – he's going to be the president of the negotiations at the event. Something of a googly that no one saw coming…

It seems that in managing to wangle that concession out of the Turks, he's actually opened a whole new can of worms with the leader of the opposition Sussan Ley already coming out slogging.

"Australians don't need a part-time Energy Minister, a Minister for global UN summits, someone who's clearly excited about the prospect of globetrotting to a variety of countries when his real job is here at home focusing on the one thing that we are focused on, and that is how you bring electricity prices down," she said this morning.

Time for tea, I think.

Yours,

Russell Yeo