Julia Gillard can afford to be reasonably satisfied with the first week of the rest of her government.

She might have lost a procedural vote of no real consequence (although The Australian seemed to regard it as an event only marginally less devastating than the floods in Pakistan) but in general her troops stuck together and she managed to open up a crack in the opposition.

Peter Slipper insists that he promised nothing at all in return for Labor’s support for his election as deputy speaker; well, having seen the battering his old foe Alex Somlyay received during his own negotiations for the position, he would, wouldn’t he. But Slippery Pete, as he is now universally known, has form: he ratted on the National Party to join the Libs and has since shown an insatiable appetite for the lurks and perks associated with his job.

And the mere fact that he was prepared to accept nomination and then defeat the choice of his own side suggests that his commitment to the cause of Tony Abbott is less than total. The embarrassment caused by his elevation is reward enough in itself for Gillard, but it would not be surprising is there was some more tangible quid pro quo involved further down the track.

But for the moment it does not appear that Gillard will need one in the near future. It is true that, since Abbott reneged on his original agreement, when Harry Jenkins, rather than Slipper, is in the chair, her theoretical majority on the floor of the house is just one. But it needs to be remembered that on the crucial matters of votes of confidence and the guarantee of supply Bob Katter is also committed to abstention, if not support; this raises the figure to two or three, and the Western Australian Tony Crook cannot be counted as rock solid for Abbott either.

So there is a bit of a buffer, and it is likely to remain: if Abbott is serious about trying to woo the independents to his own side, his hairy-chested, ferocious, take-no-prisoners approach is precisely the wrong way to go about it. Assuming party discipline holds rather better on the government side than it so far has on the opposition, Gillard’s survival is not an immediate issue.

But her legislative program certainly is. Even last week there were clear warnings that the crossbenchers not only had minds of their own, but that they were ready and eager to exploit their temporary power bases whenever the opportunity arose. Andrew Wilkie’s articulate and passionate denunciation of Australian’s knee-jerk participation in the Coalition of the Willing and its reckless and illegal invasion of Iraq and his consequent rejection of the Afghanistan adventure was matched only by Adam Bandt’s thoughtful and heartfelt plea for serious action on climate change.

These are two areas where the government is both vulnerable and sensitive and which are likely to grow in importance during the life of the parliament.

Afghanistan is the more manageable because although Tony Abbott appears to have abandoned strict bipartisanship with his call for more troops, at least he and Gillard appear to agree that withdrawal, as demanded by Wilkie, is not an option. Unless and until the increasing rate of Australian casualties becomes a public issue on something approaching the scale of Vietnam 40 years ago, the serious arguments will be about the size of our contribution, not about its rationale. The forthcoming debate on Afghanistan is long overdue, but is unlikely to produce any serious defections from the ranks of the major parties.

But climate change is more problematic. Since the Greens forced Gillard to take the issue off the backburner and put it back front and centre where it belongs, the debate about putting a price on carbon (which does not necessarily mean a tax — will someone please tell Tony Abbott) has already replaced the National Broadband Network as the focus of parliamentary debate and the major difference between the parties.

Technically Abbott is correct when he accuses Gillard of breaking an election promise, although the postponement of action on carbon was never presented as the core of Labor’s re-election platform — it was always something forced upon the government by a recalcitrant senate and political circumstances. But there is no doubt that the proposed inter-party committee on the subject makes a lot more sense than Gillard’s citizens assembly, even if Abbott has forbidden his own colleagues from taking part.

Given that the need for a carbon price has been strongly restated by the Treasury and is now openly espoused by the large majority of the business community as both good policy and good economics, Abbott’s stance is not necessarily a winning move. It would be surprising if some in his own party (and not just Malcolm Turnbull) were not already telling him so. And not just in Australia; for his first junket Abbott is in England to talk to the British Prime Minister David Cameron, a Tory who campaigned on the need for action on climate change.

But Abbott being Abbott, he is not going to be persuaded; if he eventually does make yet another backflip on the subject, it will be for reasons of urgent opportunism rather than logic. For the moment mindless opposition suits his program better. Another climate change election? Sure, any election at all. Bring it on.

Gillard, meanwhile, is in Brussels talking to 43 assorted leaders; once again climate change will be high on the agenda. And on her way to Brussels she dropped in on Kabul, apparently to see if president Hamid Karzai could give her any tips for the debate on his unhappy country. Or perhaps it was just to collect a few thoughts on political survival under cruel and unusual circumstances.

Last week will have brought some reassurance, but the fascinating thing about the situation which now prevails in Canberra is its unpredictability: every sitting week will bring a fresh challenge and a new surprise. Thankfully we have the footy finals, the test cricket and the Commonwealth Games to bring us back to normality during the break. Now that’s real action. Politics, shmolitics.