I must have seen an early edition of the Oz this morning in a Sunshine Beach coffee shop, one that hadn’t had time to fall into line with Rupert’s newfound greenhouse concern. The headline for the lead story of the hard copy version had business backing the PM’s greenhouse stand.

It read as a rather desperate search to find some business, any business, that was convinced Howard’s way was the best way, managing only to come up with Cement Australia – that’s the cement industry that accounts for about 5% of global man-made carbon dioxide.

There was also some rather selective recording of BHP and Rio’s position – I don’t think either company could be regarded as being in the PM’s camp on greenhouse policy.

But a funny thing happened to the story by the time I checked the online version – the “backing from business” angle had been dropped well down in the body of the copy and the lead had become Howard launching a study into how the aluminium industry might be able to reduce emissions in the wake of the Stern report.

It is quite a transformation. Ahead of Cement Australia, there’s now:

Business leaders have stepped up calls for action on emissions. The Stern report has projected the cost of global warming at $US9 trillion ($11.7 trillion).

Ah, it’s marvellous what a bit of policy “alignment” from Rupert can achieve in the way an issue is interpreted throughout the empire.