Malcolm Turnbull would be forgiven for pulling his remaining hair out this week.
Tony Abbott is in open rebellion, parroting Bill Shorten’s attack lines. The feral chihuahuas at News Corp are yapping for blood. The obscurantist end of the neoliberal spectrum — the types who won’t ever accept that neoliberalism is now deeply toxic, because they’re paid not to accept it, like the editors of the Financial Review, and the corporate lobby group Institute of Public Affairs — are unhappy. Even Turnbull’s checklist of issues for the G20 summit — you need to pretend to have an agenda for what is a largely pointless talkfest — has been swamped by North Korea; you go to the trouble of briefing journalists on your agenda, they swallow your nonsense about encryption and write you up as tough on terrorism, and Kim Jong-un fires a missile that turns the whole event into a showdown about the Hermit Kingdom.
Barnaby Joyce is calling for sanctions against China (if you think that was an accident, who led the charge against restrictions on Chinese investment?) and Labor’s trying to take away Turnbull’s one-seat buffer in Parliament.
In truth, though, Turnbull is handling things about as well as could be expected. The refusal to say Abbott’s name during the week was silly. But his senior ministers are firing back at Abbott, pointing out he’s helping Shorten. They can’t control Abbott, as Turnbull loyalist Arthur Sinodinos noted. But they can return fire at this self-indulgent hypocrite whose thirst for revenge isn’t merely helping Labor, but disrupting the government’s capacity to govern effectively. Turnbull’s shift to the ideological centre gives him a fighting chance to restore his fortunes with the electorate, however much it looks as though they’ve stopped listening to him. And he’s proven he can secure the passage of legislation through the Animal Kingdom of the Senate.
[Abbott is Bill Shorten’s new best headkicker]
Turnbull would love to be John Howard — political master of all he surveyed for the middle period of his prime ministership, unchallenged within his own party and dominating Labor. Instead, he can only look forward to being Julia Gillard. Sounds like a rotten fate — but then Gillard defied the parliamentary odds, constant smearing by the media and relentless treachery from her predecessor, to achieve a strong program of legislation and an excellent economic record: substantial cuts to spending, landing a mining boom without an outbreak of inflation, and coping with the effects of a dollar well above parity. She made dud calls along the way, but concentrated on what she could control, from a position worse than Turnbull’s. Sure, Labor eventually succumbed to Rudd’s malignant egotism, but if Gillard could deliver for three years then Turnbull surely can.
As prime minister you only get to play the hand you’re dealt. Howard got lucky and presided over a revenue boom. Since then, prime ministers have had to cope with much more difficult economic challenges than working out ways to fritter away budget surpluses. Rudd had the global financial crisis. Gillard had a mining boom that threatened to tip the whole economy over. Abbott had very weak growth that needed fiscal stimulus. Turnbull faces a slow fiscal recovery, stagnant wages, a tentative economy and an electorate that is sick of, indeed angry about, free markets, looking after corporations and small government. His job is to make the least worst of a bad situation. It’s unglamorous stuff, but so far he’s managing.
Speaking of the G20, the big question is whether Frau Merkel will open the leaders retreat by regaling the other 19 leaders with her tales of woe regarding Medicare co-payments. The precedent was set by our very-own trend-breaking penultimate PM.
“but so far he’s managing.”
Really?????
“coping” maybe?
Neither of the above, muddling through…he can’t be a Gillard because he doesn’t have any decent team members in his camp. And that is his own fault – he picked a team of duds, probably to massage his own ego.
I’d describe it as “flailing wildly” but then I’m dyslexic, KO?
Media love for Turbull remains strong… his supporters cling to him like the steadfast partner in a failed relationship – constantly excusing his sins, forgiving the inevitable letdowns and fantasising about man who never was, and will never be. Their disappointment may be strong, but their fear of him leaving is greater.
Yes the luvfest is never bloody ending !!!!!!
I cant abide Abbott and his worker bashing/corporate sycophant/loony catholic policies but at least they were the same ones he spouted all of his career
But this sickeningly vain creature Turnbull knows full well the damage that these policies are causing to this and all future generations but sits there in the big chair and defends them vigorously just so that his bully boy mates will let him keep his big chair
Turnbull is a narcisistic sociopath and thats clear for all to see but journalists still treat him like a fallen hero who has been hogtied by the liberal nasties
Continually propping up sociopaths like Rudd, Abbott and Turnbull and allowing a normal politician like Gillard – WHO HAD A POLICY PROGRAM AND IMPLEMENTED MOST OF – to be publicly abused in the most heinous way by the feral press and Liberal nasties is inexplicable and an absolute travesty
You journalists may be oblivious but out here in voter land people are thinking wtf ???????
I don’t disagree with you that Tone and Malcontent and Ruddski had/have their sociopathic problems, but seriously, Gillard made some major mistakes too, e.g. not backing same sex marriage, selling off Darwin’s Port to the Chinese and – with Anna Bligh’s help – selling off our cheap LNG supplies. Not to mention supporting off-shoring as many refugees as possible. I REALLY wanted her to succeed, but she made some hopeless mistakes.
Gillard had Rudd’s program and stuffed up most of it. She trashed single parents, aborigines, refugees, traded babies, cancelled schools computers and so on and so forth.
Enough with the worship of Gillard, shés a monster.
Enough with the obsessive endless bashing of Gillard, she’s a normal person, not a monster. Who does she remind you of in your past Marilyn? A bit of basic Psychology 101 might be needed in your case eh?
She also led a minority government, which meant a hell of a lot of compromise and a very healthy, loud, obnoxious and virulent opposition, personified by Tony Abbott and amplified by most of the MSM – especially the Murdoch arm. The electorate had been taught to want Abbott, loathe Gillard and fear minority government. Remember all those times her government was called dysfunctional? Abbott was our Trump, we were all dragged to the right and Gillard’s politics reflected that.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not praising her. I still have a bad taste in my mouth from her fiscally pointless attack on sole parents – most of them women – the same day she made the misogyny speech and where she’s been since to make a crust is as neoliberalist as it gets: Beyond Blue ( identity politics); education whatever ( meritocracy).
I am so sick of that bullshit – she had an agenda agreed by the Independents and 40 votes in a friendly senate.
Im not claiming Gillard was a saint, I didnt agree wih all of her policies and she did make some serious mistakes but she was a normal politician, she doesnt have a catastrophic personality disorder and compared to the three sociopaths she was a competent leader
Gillard – Mining Boom. So between 24 June 2010 and 27 June 2013 you contend there was a mining boom?
I thought it was pretty much all over by then and was certainly crashing through the floor in 2012. Rose tinted eyewear I’m thinking.
The reference is to “landing a mining boom” – ie dealing with the end of the boom.
“Turnbull’s shift to the ideological centre gives him a fighting chance to restore his fortunes with the electorate”.
Oh FFS Bernard. Get out and smell the wattle mate.
You’re better than the normal trash that constitutes the CPG.
So write like your words will be readable in more than a week down the road.
Turnbull’s had a long and very public chance to espouse his views and philosophy.
Now the end result is plain for all to see. He’s stuffed.
I have to give Turnbull credit for one thing though…he is a far more gifted liar than Abbott.
Yep, there’s a whiff of Mark Kenny here, who this week wrote a long and longing article about how much Australia “needs” Turnbull, and imploring everyone to support him against the horrors of Abbott on the right and Labor on the left. For that is what Turnbull is – the perfect compromise candidate for media commentators who wish to appear centrist and even-handed. I didn’t want to see Keane falling into this trap..