One feature of this federal government is that it is always in a hurry. There is no patience to wait until everything is in order before making an announcement. Don’t wait until the bureaucratic niceties are completed. Get it out there and get it out quick appears to be the motto.

And the result of all this haste tends to be negative rather than positive. The “deal” with Malaysia is but the latest example of how a policy that seemed like a good idea at the time turns bad before it is implemented.

Now Treasurer Wayne Swan has joined the hurrying brigade. He’s off to the National Press Club today to release new Treasury modelling on the impact of introducing a carbon price. Apparently Mr Swan thinks this will be good news of the kind that helps stem the tide of unfavourable reporting in the News Limited newspapers.

Yet by releasing his document before making it available to the so-called multi-party climate change committee, the Treasurer has angered those committee members whose support is needed if there ever is to be a tax on carbon. Independent MP Tony Windsor has told Fairfax “I’m not happy” the Treasury modelling was released publicly before the committee saw it. “If they want a phantom process they can do that on their own,” he said. Greens senator Christine Milne declared it “an act of bad faith”.

And it is not as if this deliberate slighting of those the Government needs as allies is going to have any impact on the tabloid press coverage. The campaign against Labor will continue whatever the Treasury predictions of the economic impact are.

When will Wayne Swan and Prime Minister Julia Gillard realise that appeasement does not work?