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Turnbull and Nelson edge to the endgame
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The damaging leak of a Malcolm Turnbull email criticising Brendan Nelson’s 5c per litre fuel excise reduction was a deliberate ploy by Turnbull … that’s what the Nelson camp believes. Turnbull has denied having anything to do with the leak of the email to The Australian’s Glenn Milne. “Neither I, nor anyone acting on my behalf, disclosed the existence or the contents of the correspondence,” Turnbull declared this morning. But sources close to Nelson believe Turnbull deliberately released the email to undercut his leader, who was finally gaining some positive media coverage following his budget reply. While the 5c-a-litre proposal has been damned by economists and the serious commentariat, talkback response has been positive, providing Nelson with the critical “cut-through” that he has been lacking since becoming leader. The Nelson camp believes this has prompted Turnbull to deliberately undermine Nelson by leaking an email critical of the proposal, sent to Nelson Chief of Staff Peter Hendy late at night last week. Nelson’s office certainly had no interest in leaking the email, and Crikey understands there has been no third-party access to the email at Nelson’s end. That leaves Turnbull and his office as the only credible source. The leaking is regarded as particularly treacherous given Turnbull - contrary to denials in Milne’s article - made a strong argument during budget reply preparations for a 10c-a-litre excise reduction. Turnbull’s argument was no mere hypothetical about the political impact of the Nelson idea he argued that a 10c reduction would be far more effective than Nelson’s limited 5c proposal. The leak has wrecked the Opposition’s first positive media weekend since the carer’s issue and taken pressure off the Government, which is under increasing scrutiny over the “alcopops” and private health insurance issues. Insiders say Turnbull doesn’t care. “He is brilliant, but erratic, and totally egocentric,” said one. “This is a man who called John Howard on the way to his concession speech on election night to tell him how well he’d done in Wentworth.” It comes on top of Turnbull’s poor performance in response to the budget last week, after being wrong-footed by the Government’s “tough as all hell” rhetoric. The leak may also bring the Nelson-Turnbull endgame forward, just when everyone had relaxed into assuming Nelson would be around for a while yet. If the allegations are true, it suggests an element of Keating/Howard style obsession to Turnbull’s bomb-throwing, a willingness to inflict damage on his own party to pursue his own leadership ambitions. It’s a pretty shabby look at the moment, and can’t have won Turnbull any recruits to his cause. However, just like the Liberals did with Howard in 1985 and Labor with Keating in 1991, the party may eventually conclude that Turnbull should be given his go rather than be allowed to continue wrecking the party, and be permitted to implode or, alternatively, succeed brilliantly. A key problem, however, is that if Turnbull fails as leader, he won’t be sticking around to help pick up the pieces. Turnbull’s long-term commitment is to himself, rather than the party he hopes to lead, and in any event he has never persisted in one career more than a few years. All of this may also encourage more MPs to try to convince Peter Costello - whose antics last week suggested he had already mentally left the building - to take on the leadership. That won’t solve the Turnbull problem, especially as Costello knows all about ambitious deputies, unless the party made it clear that Turnbull would have to wait. As today’s revelation suggests, Turnbull isn’t one for waiting. |
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16 Comments
Current ABC headline: “I Enjoy Turnbull’s Full Support: Nelson” If he enjoys that then he would enjoy anything. Roast Nelson anyone?
It is pretty pointless to give Turnbull the benefit of the doubt. The circumstances strongly suggest that Turnbull wrote the email solely for the purpose of proving afterwards that he opposed Nelson’s excursion (never to return?) into cheap populism. Turnbull is planning a ‘Christmas in July’ party and Brendan is the designated roast pig, expertly slow cooked over a slow fire.
The Howard supporters are politically dead. Bishop’s approval rating would make Nelson’s look good.
It is surprising how journos keep concentrating on Nelson and thereby extend Rudd’s honeymoon. Give Nelson a fair go! Unlike Nelson’s hypothetical 5c petrol excise reduction, Rudd’s Budget measures are real. Where is the journo diligence when it comes to considering, for example, the real impacts of the Alcopops heavier taxing (not affecting binge drinking because of other alcholic drink substitution ) and removal of solar panel rebate for ‘rich’ consumers (discouraging change to green alternative energy)? The Government cannot believe its luck.
The “Turnbull Shapes Up” cartoon is a beaut!
JamesK: I’m with you. I get the feeling that Tom McL’s comments have been translated from Urdu before being fed into a meat grinder.
Tom I think you should hold off burning that first bong until AFTER you share your comments even if that means typing first thing when you come to.
I thought for a while that Turnbull was no fool but that will be proven wrong if he takes on Nelson so soon.
There is at least one more try hard to be expended before the Liberals find someone to lead them out of the wilderness and for Turnbull to stand up now would be foolhardy, particularly if he has to endure long term scrutiny of his ability, which lately has appeared to be pretty average. His best chance would be to do a Bob Hawke and jump in just before an election. Costello is the mystery bet but if past performance is the best indicator for the future he won’t have the guts or the support. A wise Turnbull would leave Brendan in the job for as long as possible but I suspect his impatience is brought about by the fear that if Julie Bishop gets in the job before he does she might actually be the one to lift their game. tThat would spell the end of his PM ambitions and hand the Liberal Party back to the conservative pro- Howard forces.
That is an emphatic and clear cut statement by Turnbull, if accurately reported. Should that denial be demonstrated to be dishonest, it would undoubtedly end the possibility of leadership for Turnbull. I therefore believe him. The Liberal party is a mess and Labor should be attacked with respect to Medicare levy fiasco and the open-ended nature of the $40 billion “investment” funds. One could reasonably describe the budget as “uninspiring”. The present opposition is even more uninspiring however.
I don’t understand why the Libs don’t use this time in the wilderness to ditch the short term populism and develop some vision for Australia’s future. In the case of energy independence, this is a hugely important issue that neither party seems to be addressing properly, and a five cent petrol “holiday” isn’t going to solve anything. Why not mandate that cars sold in Australia must run on LPG to take advantage of our massive reserves? Or mandate a percentage of all cars sold must be electric? We have the technology to do this relatively quickly, and while people may say that electric cars only move the pollution to coal stations, it’s far easier to capture carbon at a power station than from the tail pipes of 100 thousand vehicles. We also end up with the benefit of making transport completely clean as our power generation moves to renewable baseload sources like solar thermal, and making our power grid more efficient because plug in cars can give back to the grid during peak hours.
“This is a man who called John Howard on the way to his concession speech on election night to tell him how well he’d done in Wentworth.”
- Now *that* is funny.
I’m against all drugs except black coffee which I like alot.
Sorry! I guess they just seem to ramble a little…
It is a shame the Libs are a couple of years late with the petrol tax issue. They should have slashed the petrol tax in response to the rising price and made it a contrast of great political importance against a left wing mob that is just itching to bring in its carbon taxes that will push the price towards European levels of $2.50 plus a litre. Unfortunately this idea did not get off the ground as Libs were manouvered by green bureacrats into the global warming corner whereby talk of cheaper petrol was denounced as green and political heresy. Blame every Environment Minister Howard ever had, especially the nutcase called Ian Campbell who elevated the issue so well for the left. If Libs want to make an impact, promise at least 20cents per litre cut.
What is it with these Libs, impatient with leadership aspirations but too gutless to actually take up the fight except by undermining?
Other things to consider, solar panel rebates and gas conversion rebates are industry subsidies, if electricity and petrol were taxed to reflect total cost rather than just production/extraction costs and if the panel maker/gas converter could make a compelling case then there would be no need for subsidies. Anyway gas is only cheaper because it is taxed at a lower rate, you may wonder where the economic sense lies in pricing a directly competitive product so cheaply.
Further, top up welfare paid to the (full time) working poor is another industry subsidy. If a company can only survive by paying below the poverty line wages then it should go to the wall rather than taxpayers making up the shortfall.
Finally of course the alcohol in alcopops should be taxed at the same rate as alcohol in other drinks. Derr!
The fact remains it’s bad policy to cut excise on petrol. Full stop. Why bother go the next step and ask who leaked? What really counts is, as blogged last week, the Sydney press by rather sly juxtaposition, burned Nelson in their coverage accordingly. The mechanism of that press burning was to place the big big story of the bashing/petrol dousing victim Lauren Huxley ie conviction of thug after a year or more of public interest, next to Nelson’s petrol excise. As Christian Kerr used to say, when the Sydney Daily Telegraph goes feral on the Coalition, their natural Howard Battler constituency, you know they are on the slide. The headline on centrist Farr piece was ‘Nelson’s nitwits’ - an editor’s headline. The Liberal Party brand can’t survive that. True the press today a slow Monday have been kinder by attacking the Rudd Govt with ‘Swan dive’ and ‘Winners and losers in funding for drugs’ the petrol split thing is very big too. Serious net loss for brand, 6 months in.