With such a terrible Newspoll result at the start another parliamentary week, Malcolm Turnbull could hardly get away with adopting the usual high-minded non-response to poor polling — especially given the raison d’etre for his prime ministership was Tony Abbott’s poor polling. Why had Labor now extended its two-party preferred lead to 55-45%? Why has Turnbull’s net disapproval plumbed the new depth of -30? It was Tony Abbott’s fault, Turnbull insisted today, for timing last week’s outburst for maximum effect on Newspoll.
This neatly avoids the more pressing question of whether Turnbull’s strategy since the start of the year, of shifting to the right and fully embracing Tony Abbott’s political methods of scare campaigns and delegitimisation of his opponent, is working. Has Tony Abbott distracting from Malcolm Turnbull turning into Tony Abbott caused the bad polling result, or did Turnbull turning into Abbott cause it?
Neither is a particularly good outcome for the government given Abbott isn’t about to go away and could, should he be minded to, offer what could become a fortnightly series of helpful suggestions for his party that will ruin every poll for months to come. Nor does Turnbull have much room to manoeuvre if he thinks he needs to shift back to the political centre: his party and his coalition partner won’t let him. For the Nationals and some on the Liberal right, it’s no longer merely about ideology — they can only look at One Nation’s surging polling numbers and wonder if they’ll be in the firing line unless they find a way to stem the shift of voters to the extremist party. From some state and federal Coalition MPs, it might only be Labor’s adherence to what used to be the bipartisan policy of preferencing One Nation last that saves them.
Turnbull is now looking a lot like that series of now ex-Republican congressional veterans who were ousted by the Tea Party after 2008, from Trent Lott through to John Boehner. None of them were exactly moderate, and all of them tried to accommodate an extremist fringe that was determined to oust them because they could never be as purely and authentically far right. All ended up tossed out; Boehner now spends much of his time publicly enjoying the travails of his former colleagues. The Tea Party can now claim vindication via Trump, but in a system of compulsory and preferential voting no victory awaits for neo-fascists here.
For Turnbull, whose mimicry of Abbott is bound to constantly remind a substantial proportion of the electorate how he used to be different, pandering to the far right isn’t going to protect him, and not just because Abbott is determined to undermine him. The Howard government successfully fought One Nation in the late 1990s, led by Tim Fischer, John Anderson and Ron Boswell, with Tony Abbott running the black ops. That success has been forgotten, particularly by the Nationals, who now seem more interesting in apeing, or even joining, Hanson than in fighting her. And that extends to Abbott, who has gone from Hanson’s most devoted enemy to publicly advocating her extremist agenda.
There’s no easy way out of this for Turnbull. The law of averages suggests the next Newspoll will be better for him. But fortnightly fluctuations won’t change the fact that he’s being dragged to the right, leaving Labor to occupy the centre ground where — as Turnbull has remarked before — most voters reside.
The ‘far right’ probably don’t really care. It’s a bit like Mike Baird in NSW; implement as much dry, right-wing economic policy as possible in the shortest amount of time possible. Yes, some of it might get knocked on the head when a different government gets the reins, but slowly, but surely, inch by inch, we’ll shift the landscape.
Carr could have sat on Fraser’s Front Bench and Fraser would probably be at home on Shorten’s. There’s a drift and the consequences seem inevitable.
Spot on. The political and media class in Canberra is sponsored by the purveyors of a long-term global system of wealth extraction conceived by the Chicago School many decades ago and executed by Reagan and Thatcher. Everything subsequent in Western liberal democracies has essentially been an exercise in rebranding this loathsome agenda. The political spectacle placates the public with false debates and the illusion of choice. Meanwhile, the corporate expropriation of the commonwealth proceeds steadily.
This is probably going to sound like a really stupid question, but what exactly is dragging Turnbull to the right? I don’t mean this in regards to who in the party and I’m aware that he managed to knife Abbott by making promises to the Nationals and his party’s right wing, etc. What I mean is, what exactly is stopping him from ditching all that? If he were to publicly and very openly move to the centre of politics where he clearly would prefer to be and where the majority of Australia would like him to be, what is there that the fringe lunatics could do? I am guessing that it would immediately lift Turnbull’s approval ratings quite drastically, even if the party itself may not get an immediate boost. But with Turnbull’s personal ratings high, I really don’t see how the far right could do much to stop him.
Because what the media will not say is that Turnbull doesn’t actually know what to do as PM, he just wanted the job as the entitlement of a white rich man.
Because he holds power by one seat only. He should break away and start his own political party. He would be one of the few parliamentarians in history to have the money to found his own party.
@Venise – I don’t think it matters much that he only has a one seat majority. What is the party’s right going to do? Vote with the Greens and Labor in protest?
He’s their puppet, beholden to the far-right for his position.
Move against their ideals and they’ll dump him, like someone else’s dirty nappy, on the floor – or simply “find something else to do/get tied up” come vote time?
Turnbull does have one option: do a Gillard and call for a vote between him and Abbott, with the proviso that the loser resign from the party and parliament immediately, irrevocably and permanently.
And what does he do if Abbott doesn’t stand?
Malcolm is thoroughly wedged. Only a Paul Keating style ‘crash or crash through’ strategy can help him now, and I don’t think he has that kind of political courage.
Saugoof and Mr Pollard’s suggestion are exactly the crash or crash through strategy that I’m thinking of. Call their bluff, or resign and leave them behind.
And perhaps the theatrics men stuff all.
The coalition are simply doing themselves over by having toxic policies, the details of which are slowly sinking into the consciousness of more and more voters.