Newly sworn in Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull now faces an even bigger bowl of shit for him to eat than that given to Tony Abbott. His reaction so far does not give one confidence that he has the wherewithal to grab the spoon firmly and tuck in, as a strong leader must.
His first mistake was to agree to the demands of the Liberal right to maintain most of the Abbott policy agenda. This is what brought down Abbott, in that he made a bargain with the electorate in the last days before the last election to carry Julia Gillard's policies through, with the exception of the carbon tax (and yes, that includes Gillard's asylum seeker policy). Arguably, this is also what brought down Gillard in that she carried on the Kevin Rudd agenda. Rudd, for all his faults with implementation and governance, is the only politician in the post-Howard era to develop an original policy platform, and one which was so wildly popular that all other politicians of both sides have had no choice but to complete their introduction (albeit the Coalition deliberately sabotaged the NBN and NDIS).
His first mistake was to agree to the demands of the Liberal right to maintain most of the Abbott policy agenda. This is what brought down Abbott, in that he made a bargain with the electorate in the last days before the last election to carry Julia Gillard's policies through, with the exception of the carbon tax (and yes, that includes Gillard's asylum seeker policy). Arguably, this is also what brought down Gillard in that she carried on the Kevin Rudd agenda. Rudd, for all his faults with implementation and governance, is the only politician in the post-Howard era to develop an original policy platform, and one which was so wildly popular that all other politicians of both sides have had no choice but to complete their introduction (albeit the Coalition deliberately sabotaged the NBN and NDIS).
Turnbull now has to trudge on defending the legacy of a deeply unpopular ex-PM and his deeply unpopular policy slate, with everyone knowing he strongly disagrees with much of it. There has been some talk about Turnbull as a different kind of a politician, but this will prove that he's just as capable of anyone else of lying and being unfaithful to his own views to serve the interests of factional power.
His other glaring mistake so far has been giving in to demands from the Nationals, principally to cede Barnaby Joyce the water portfolio, but also to lock in Abbott timeframes for the same sex marriage plebiscite (post-election) and tackling climate change (never). This is not a good start to his negotiations with the Senate, as Joyce will be a constant irritation to the Greens. If he can't even avoid selling his arse to Warren Truss, how can he expect to gain respect from the cross-benches?
Turnbull's major problem leading up to the next scheduled election in late 2016 is the state of the economy, which is teetering on recession at a most recent quarterly rate of 0.2% growth. I am sure that those 54 Liberal members did not think they were voting for an early election when they cast their ballots the other day. Nevertheless, an early election to capitalise on his honeymoon and avoid the seemingly inevitable economic slide over the next year might also give Turnbull a fresh mandate to stand up to the LNP factions. The longer he waits, the more shit he has to eat.
UPDATE: Lenore Taylor pours cold water on aspects of the Nationals bowl of shit. Which means it's diluted, I suppose, but still tastes nasty. The lock-in of the SSM and AGW policies is of most importance electorally.
UPDATE: Lenore Taylor pours cold water on aspects of the Nationals bowl of shit. Which means it's diluted, I suppose, but still tastes nasty. The lock-in of the SSM and AGW policies is of most importance electorally.
Turnbull is much better than Abbott as has been transparently obvious thus far HOWEVER he can only succeed IF he says the last two years were not great. He would be implicated given he was in Cabinet.
ReplyDeleteIt would be very Gillardish to maintain it was a Good government but we just had to ditch the PM.
It didn't work then and it probably wouldn't work this time EXCEPT they do not have a successful defence against the GFC ( Which Timothy Taylor rightly points out could well have developed into a depression) to highlight.
It will be fascinating.