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Turnbull’s shocker of a week
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This week’s Parliamentary sittings couldn’t come soon enough for Malcolm Turnbull. Last night’s split on the Government’s infrastructure bill capped off what turned out to be a shocker of a week. Yesterday Turnbull and the Prime Minister missed Question Time to attend the funeral of Afghanistan casualty Lieutenant Fussell. Gillard and Bishop stepped in. While Bishop looked more comfortable than during her enforced silence in Question Times earlier this week, the difference between Government and Opposition was stark. One side has a deputy who looks every inch ready for the top job, the other does not, and both sides know it. Despite pressure from those noted Labor fans at The Oz, Bishop’s not going anywhere for the time being. Her fate is in her hands, whether clawed or not. The Nats also left the reservation not once but twice this week, over carbon sinks and infrastructure. Fiona Nash took a bullet for crossing the floor, resigning from her shadow Parliamentary Secretaryship. There was criticism of Turnbull for letting her go, but it was the right decision — you can’t cross the floor on an issue in your own portfolio, which Nash did. But as one of the few sane and intelligent Nats, Nash will be missed, including by her shadow Minister, Greg Hunt. The party leadership should think seriously about replacing her with South Australia’s Simon Birmingham, even though he’s a Liberal. Birmingham’s a great young talent and an effective communicator who has been closely engaged with water issues. This should be put into some context: in opposition it matters less if you cross the floor on the Government’s bills, and particularly so when the result is a foregone conclusion. Even so, the seemingly regular departures of the Nats confirm that making Barnaby Joyce Senate leader has, rather than curtailing his own tendency to wander, merely allowed him to take some others with him. In that context, the new tendency of strict Coalitionist Ron Boswell to cross the floor is a potentially worrying sign. Meanwhile, the joint party room has started getting itself into a lather over asylum seekers again. There’s another split, this time within the Liberals, over detention. Petro Georgiou and WA Senator Alan Eggleston are both on the Senate-Reps Migration Committee and joined new Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young in a dissenting report from the current inquiry into immigration detention. In particular, they recommended detainees be held for no longer than 30 days before coming before a court. The report prompted a number of Coalition MPs to voice their strong support for the Howard Government’s approach to mandatory detention. Turnbull endorsed their views, on the same day he promised “innovative” new Liberal Party policies. The only positive headlines Turnbull managed this week were for a stunt connecting the States’ difficulties raising credit with a possible Middle East investment delegation next year. Wayne Swan was casually dismissive of the idea of an infrastructure bank yesterday and the issue dropped from view, overtaken by end-of-year shenanigans. It wasn’t supposed to be like this for Turnbull, trailing badly in the polls despite the economic crisis, with a divided party, shadow Cabinet ministers skipping votes, the Nationals demonstrating their independence and mandatory detention looming as a divisive issue inside and outside the party. Turnbull was supposed to take the fight to the Government with his customary vim and vigour, locking MPs in behind him by giving them the chance of victory in 2010 that they never had under Nelson, and getting the Coalition to a competitive poll position. The hope might have been that the Coalition would go into the summer break with a spring in its step and the hope — not that it would ever have been articulated in this way — that rising unemployment would further undermine the Government’s position in 2009. That might yet happen but for now the summer break will mainly be an opportunity for Turnbull to worry about his shadow Treasurer and wonder which issue the Nats — none of whom are particularly fond of the former investment banker who leads them — will break on next. During the week Kevin Rudd was trying to play up the threat to Turnbull posed by Peter Costello. That’s a long way off, and Costello could pull the pin at any moment and walk if he finds a job that suits him. But if the Turnbull experiment fails in 2009, those of us blessed with 20-20 hindsight will identify this week as where things started to go wrong. |
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17 Comments
So Mr ladeda James, Bishop is the least of his worries? Any idea the difference between stupid and ignorant? In your case none. Most of us know exactly what Bernard means, but your tendancy to be a nit picker along with all your other idiotic thick head traits makes you the dodo (as in pooper) brain with permanent status. What a pathetic excuse for a human being you are. Take your religious, homophobic, right wing droppings elsewhere
I agree with you Venise. Julia 09 would be far better than than the character bereft Kev 07. And Tanner would be far better than the maladroit and unscrupulous Swan
James is quite correct about the first sentence. Sloppy stuff. Type in haste, repent - well, sigh and go do something else - at leisure. Corrections are always welcome. Correcting writers is at the heart of Web 2.0, no?
I wonder if there’s a full moon tonight?
I did not “take Bernard to task” you grammatically impoverished moron ‘dennis’.
2008 a bad year for bankers then?
Bernard
this article is badly written and a bore to try and read.
clumsy metaphors. “pull the pin” & “20-20 hindsight” - what are you saying man - it’s crap!
Well Bernard put the kybosh on the JamesK dissidents. Funny how the word of authority sobers people.
PPS: IMHO, Julia Gillard would make a v good Prime Minister. She is a vast improvement to the religion-soaked Kevin Rudd and his idiotic little moralizing. Plus, she doesn’t take herself too seriously. Or am I a minority of one?
Either that or people had better things to do on the weekend…
Presumably the first sentence should have read: The end of “(t)his week’s Parliamentary sittings couldn’t come soon enough for Malcolm Turnbull.”
Otherwise a straightforward report of the state of play.
This should have been a high scoring week for Turnbull instead of which it was indeed a big loss. Turnbull has to start opposing. There is much to oppose. Bishop is the least of his and The Liberals problems.
Irrespective of who holds the most votes within the party room, and all the political machinations we, the public, don’t know about; I would have thought one of the main reasons Malcolm Turnbull may not wish to get rid of his shadow treasurer could be this superficial, brittle little Julie Bishop- actually makes him look good. Turnbull may turn out to be a Liberal leader but he is a long way from achieving his ambition yet. Meanwhile the brittle little Bishop and her nervy little gestures make him look a little better than the old style politician he seems to aspire to be. Sort of a 50’s image with what I can only imagine are borrowed Green creds he dresses a lot better than did the politicians of the Ming dynasty.
PS: Are there any politicians in OZ who aren’t Catholic, or members of other strange religions? Or are we going to end up like America, where atheists have to pretend to be religious to even get elected?
If the Libs can’t do better than this, and they don’t exactly have a vast reservoir of talent on which to draw, they will be in the bleachers for the next ten years.
Venise I disagree. Though I quite like Gillard, our first female Prime Minister should be
Maxine.
Go Maxie!
No you’re spot on Bernard. Turnbull’s leadership isn’t going to be the walk in the park he expected and nor is Julie Bishop going to rock electorate socks or much else. It’s a season for the Liberals to map out how they’ll get their political jollies after a week that tolled some pretty ordinary bells for the mob on the other side. After Emo Nelson the pace should have picked up even a smidgeon - that it hasn’t makes it even more uncomfortable for the team that keeps pinning its hopes on leadership and not teamwork. They just don’t get it do they? (PS Ruark….sorry about the metaphors idioms etc that make writing such a joy!)
The Libs need to stop EVERYTHING they are doing and take a long hard look at themselves. The situation this week has shown us how chaotic things are within the party and within the coalition. This mob have no chance in 2010 or 2011 under these circumstances (and had only a slim chance anyway given the electorate’s longstanding attitude to one-term governments). The question is do they want to be electable in 2014? If so, have a think about the ALP’s fortunes in the late 90’s, early 00’s and mid 00’s. The less chaotic the ALP were, the better their prospects became. I have no way of knowing whether Turnbull is the problem or if he’s being destabilised, but those in the know need to fix whatever is causing so much disunity.
What a divine woman you must be belittling belinda…….. the intelligent one?
You sound infested……. perhaps you had see a catholic priest for an exorcism…..if only you could find any man to take you on…..
Just as popular as ever, both Julie and JamesK. I implore the opposition to keep this front bench, after Bush goes in the new year, they will be all we left have for comedy.
Hey JimmyK you deserve all you get buster, so you want to play with the grownups get used to it. Incidently you take Bernard to task (oh no did I?) over his first sentence. How about this piece of rubbish from you…”perhaps you had see a catholic priest for an exorcism.” Huh???? And you have the audacity to check others grammer. Wanker, hypocrite. Go pull a wave over your head.