The #libspill is on. Only problem is: nobody is standing against Tony Abbott yet. Julie Bishop has ruled herself out, as has Scott Morrison. Malcolm Turnbull is the only viable alternative candidate, and he's working the numbers.
I have not had the greatest of luck in predicting these things - I thought Rudd wouldn't run against Gillard and said so on the fateful day that he won back the leadership - but I reckon the most likely scenario is that Turnbull realises he doesn't have the numbers, and doesn't stand. He may run and lose, but that won't solve anything, just as it didn't solve anything when Rudd ran and lost a couple of times before winning. There will be plenty of opprobrium to share around in any case. Abbott's leadership will still be terminal, he still won't have a mandate, and his position will be even worse because he'll have to bone Turnbull from the front bench and appoint someone less qualified.
This all plays into Scott Morrison's hands. Abbott and Turnbull can bash each other up across multiple failed spills, and he can wait for the right moment to come around the outside like Kiwi in 1983. (Note to self: must update sporting analogies to 21st century.) As he rolls out social security policies, Morrison will look like the only one who is still accomplishing anything at a level of competency befitting a leader.
I feel like Steve M. over at No More Mister Nice Blog who is similarly wailing abut Scott Walker being the quiet favourite for the 2016 GOP primary. I think it's important to know the real enemy, and why he is the dark horse based on his attractiveness to right wing extremists. Walker puts the wind up Steve the way that Morrison puts the wind up me: they could cause the most destruction to the apparatus of social democracy if they ever fluke their way into office. Leftists hate Walker and Morrison, but they get results in implementing their hated policies. It's the quiet ones who are most dangerous at times like this.
The leadership spill is finally bringing into sharp public focus the fact that the Coalition is actually a faction riven shambles around the culture war fault line of climate change. Virtually everyone in the electorate believes Turnbull would have better ideas for good economic policies that Abbott/Hockey, but because he is pro-science on one issue, half of the Coalition cannot abide him and don't want to let him near the economy.
ReplyDeleteThe main reason this fundamental problem did not prevent them getting elected was because Labor managed to outdo them in the matter of shambolic in-fighting. But at least with them it was based on personalities, which is easily resolved once the main character is ousted. (It's a shame so many others left as a result of stress caused by Rudd, though.)
Given the sheer numbers of Coalition members who do not believe or understand the science, the problem of resolving their faction problem is much more major and difficult to overcome.
Steve
The sooner Kevin Andrews and his Tea-Drinking Party departs the scene, the better.
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