After a better, quieter day for the Prime Minister yesterday, today, without any apparent cause, momentum shifted. A Liberal leadership spill is now expected on Tuesday, when MPs return to Canberra for the first time in 2015. And Malcolm Turnbull has emerged the frontrunner for the job, even though he insists he’s not running for anything.
The problem that the Liberals, and Tony Abbott, now face is one of expectations. A failure to resolve the leadership issue on Tuesday — either through the lack of a contest or through the Prime Minister surviving one — will only delay the inevitable and delight Labor MPs, who just 18 months into a new government must be unable to believe their luck. The man who bested first Kevin Rudd, then Julia Gillard, then Kevin Rudd again with his remorseless aggression has imploded in a manner that makes Rudd’s first prime ministership look positively sedate.
The other problem with a failure to resolve the leadership issue next week is that the political stumbles, policy failures and uncertainty that have marked the last few months of the Abbott government have damaged the economy at the exact moment it needs to be gaining strength to deal with coming international pressures.
As the Reserve Bank has made clear this morning, the economy is expected to be materially weaker throughout 2015 than previously expected. A continuation of the status quo will only exacerbate this weakness.
As a political and media class, we all obsess over leadership spills, often to the fury of average voters. For once, this contest has very real implications for jobs and investment. The Liberals need to put an end to the uncertainty and get on with governing.
I don’t think there will be a leadership spill on Tuesday. Simpkins will move for one, the motion will be defeated and the caucus will move onto other things.
The only chance of it being different to that is if Bishop or Turnbull is prepared to run and after their public announcements this week, it will be far more damaging to the Party if they stand for leader on Tuesday than if they honour the public statements they have made.
If the leadership was vacant, it would be different but it’s not vacant.
Gee, if Captain Australia gets through to the end of next week still leader, then I reckon he deserves a knighthood. Maybe he could give himself one?
And surely it’s worth an Order of Australia, for the first person to stand near Abbott, while pointing and uttering the Nelson Muntz, “ha ha”.
I would be surprised if anyone with half a brain wanted to pick upthe shit stick that is this government … but then we are talking about tory types, power without principle being their sole motivation.
Surely better to leave Toxic twisting in the wind for another couple of months and then become PM by acclamation – as if this lot of moral myopics could agree even on whom they most loathe.
I am fairly sure MT will do a Costello and no-contest the leadership if the spill motion does indeed get up. I suspect his ticker is not in it anymore and he is content to be a foot soldier (albeit in a senior rank) in the LNP army. I seem to remember a Labor spill where KR did not put his hand up and Julia stayed leader. The only one damaged at the time was Simon Crean. History repeats itself!