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Turnbull is dead
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It should have been obvious to anyone who came into contact with him that Godwin Grech was not a man whose robustness could be assumed. Apparently frail and ill from childhood, a solitary type who joined the CPS directly from university, he clearly found in public service a framework for his existence, and a meaning for a life he reasonably assumed would be foreshortened. At some point that commitment became obsession, a disabler rather than enabler — working increasingly long hours Grech appears to have made himself hospitalisable from his chronic bowel condition on repeated occasions. Who knows why he was permitted to keep working full-time under such conditions, but one should not assume it was indifference — it may have been a form of mercy to not deprive someone of the one thing they had in life. What is not in doubt is that he then fell into the hands of the worst people he could have met — a Liberal leader who has never been defined by any cause except his own, and shows no sign of having a non-robust moment in his adult life, and Erica Betz, the Coalition’s bloodless hatchet-man. Most people would have spotted instantly that someone like Grech was out of his element, in crisis, that there was a point at which to stop. The true measure of the man is that his convoluted explanation for faking the Utegate email — that he wanted the Coalition to pass the OzCar legislation and thus did them a favour, that he thought there had been an email and recreated it — rings truer than any simpler explanation of spite, personal gain, etc. I don’t mean that he is necessarily lacking in guile, strategy or intelligence, but he was someone suddenly playing in the wrong weight class. That Malcolm Turnbull didn’t see this is possibly a more damning indictment of his judgement than his increasingly obvious lack of political skills — the most recent being to have an ABC Australian Story crew follow him round with apparent carte blanche, at a time when he was pursuing a complex gotcha attack on the government. Most post-adolescents develop some basic inner sense of how far is too far with someone like Grech, some allowance for human vulnerability, and some sense of responsibility for it. That Turnbull didn’t and couldn’t may have been his own undoing — the lack of moral insight was the flipside of a lack of psychological insight that would have rung alarm bells in a more astute person – but it also contributed to the ruination of a man whose one hope for a meaningful and rounded life, for a life that made sense, was to have been, and been remembered as, a dutiful and effective public servant. Turnbull was the stronger man. It was his fault. The Australian Story footage caught that perfectly — Turnbull bouncing around like a manic Mr Punch, with his bizarre boiler-room of wife, daughter and gormless second-rate staff (“what’s concocted mean?”), a bunch of Bellevue Hillbillies who make the Kardashians look like Lincoln’s Civil war cabinet. Grech’s fate makes the whole thing look more tragedy than farce — a bunch of Sydney sybarites sitting around quietly dismembering someone. Turnbull is dead. The prime bull is now a side of beef hanging from a hook. His political skills are laughable — witness his ad-hoc announcement of campaign finance reform to cut out corporate donations, a move which would destroy the Liberal Party and make the Greens the best funded party in Australia. The party organisation would rather lose half a dozen elections than corporate funding. So Turnbull has made enemies of both the inner party, and the general public, the latter regarding him as not only a dill, but as “not much of a bloke”. “Not much of a bloke” is the Australian equivalent of the Yiddish judgement of someone that “they’re no mensch”. It’s a final judgment, because it goes to the heart of someone’s basic sense of humanity — the rough mix of respect, sympathy, humility, attention to the other, that we all try to project at the same time as we purposefully pursue our lives. Too much of it is a lack of will masquerading as morals, but an absence of it simply exiles you. Weirdly, being judged NMOAB is a worse assessment than more forcefully expressed judgements. The trouble for the Liberal Party is that such a judgement attaches to their two most likely leaders, first Abbott and now Turnbull. Nothing in Abbott’s medieval worldview condemned him absolutely — it took a single remark about the late Bernie Banton to do that. For a Christian, Abbott couldn’t understand that there was something Christlike in the calm patience of Banton and others in the face of death at the hands of evil. Who would have blamed a dying James Hardie worker who sank a staysharp into the neck of a Board Member outside a courtroom? But they didn’t, and that was the operation of grace wherever you think that quality comes from, and the fact that Abbott couldn’t see it made it clear to everyone that, well, he was NMOAB. Like many of a certain type of Roman Catholic, and Turnbull is the same, Abbott is a man without a soul who outsources its provisioning to the most dependable outfit around — and one that, unlike Protestanism or Islam, doesn’t demand that you make much of an effort to change your nature. Churchill, that noted author-politician famously remarked that a conservative leader needs to be held up if drunk, covered up for if an adulterer etc etc, and “poleaxed if he is no good”. The bell tolls for Turnbull, and the party may as well make it quick and decisive. The fact that both he and the Mad Monk are out of consideration by any sane strategist actually helps the one other contender, Jolly Joe Hockey. True, he wasn’t in consideration months ago, he’s a big boofy man, retaining more fluid than the Canberra aquifer, a human beanbag who assumes the shape of the last person who sat on him. But he is recognisably a decent bloke, and clearly the party can minimise its next election losses — which is all we’re talking about now — by assuring the public that is it not entirely composed of creepy pod-people. Hockey also has a genuine popular touch, and he’d show up Rudd’s spin-doctored faux-nomie in a way that neither Turnbull or Abbott can, because they are simply second-rate versions of him. Turnbull will go to whatever he’s going to do next never really understanding what happened to him, Abbott drift into deeper bewilderment as the role of spiritual political leader he thought he would take is played out by a man who looks like the Norwegian Minister for Social Security, and Godwin Grech goes to invalidism with the hope that people will remember him as a man and not a fall-guy. |
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42 Comments
But isn’t Joe Hockey the Liberals’ Kim Beazley without the intellect?
Hi Guy -
Great story. However, I’m not convinced it’s true. Granted that the judgement “not much of a bloke” is damning in personal relationships (altho maybe even that’s debatable), I’m not sure it’s the same in politics. It was the general verdict on Malcolm Fraser - aloof, out of touch, ruthless to the point of inhumanity - but that didn’t stop him winning two landslides. Ditto Paul Keating, Margaret Thatcher, even Barack Obama. There’s a tension there; we like our politicians to be recognisably human, but we also like them to be something out of the ordinary. It’s probably still too late (or too early) for Turnbull, but I can imagine a time where Abbott’s apparent lack of empathy might be seen as a virtue, much like Obama’s unnaturally icy calm.
Hi Guy - “Jolly Joe Hockey. True, he wasn’t in consideration months ago, he’s a big boofy man, retaining more fluid than the Canberra aquifer, a human beanbag who assumes the shape of the last person who sat on him…”
One of the funnyest lines I’ve read today, nice one.
Personally, I wish Mal Brough was in parliament - maybe I have a thing for Mals, but he seemed like a safe a sober pair of hands, but with more bloke appeal and less nerdy than KRudd types. But still with potential stateman like qualities that Charles points to above.
It looks the Opposition is bored to stiff. It is such a pity that the taxpayers money is totally wasted on the bunch masquerading as a political party.
The Liberals suffer from lack of talents and integrity. They must have never heard about a team work. The Australian Story made it clear: ‘me and my family’ syndrom. No vision for the country, no mention of the Party program, not one real reason to be a PM.
All the Libs can do at the moment is to go through the texbooks trying to find out about the role of the Opposition. I suggest group reading. Unisono.
LOMBARD
lots of money but a real dickhead
worse an over rated one
Without doubt, one of your finer pieces today Guy.
Well worth the price of admission.
Spot on. But Jolly Joe Hockey, dunno. Perhaps it makes sense as another stop-gap, especially if Rudd calls a double-dissolution soonish.
Loved the Erica Betz but which kind of trannie is he (Eric to Erica or the inverse?) (but then I ask myself why have Crikey always censored my “accidental” typo of Andrew Blot?)
Click, Gavin. Was thinking: Kym Beasley before I clicked through to here. Without the intellect is something we’ll have to find out.
Jeez Guy,
While I agree about Turnbull, you are painting Grech as a poor innocent.
This I do not believe and there is more evidence to the contrary. He is a manipulative no-body desperate to get some glory, however perverted and destructive that might be.
He would have been right up John Howard’s fundamental if Tony Abbott had not already been there.
I always like a well-written article that pulls no punches so I thoroughly enjoyed this one. But I took umbrage - despite, or perhaps even because of, my lapsed Catholic status - at the reference to ‘a certain type of Roman Catholic’. Catholic Abbot might be, but his lack of soul and compassion is not the monopoly of any kind of Roman Catholic (such a quaint ‘50-ish phrase in itself). It is shared, I would argue, by ‘a certain type of Christian’ in general.
Top article Guy and I share Colins enjoyment of your description of Humpty Hockey, priceless.
The amazing response by those members of the Opposition who have had the absolute hide to stickup for Turnbull the Mad beggers belief. Minchin, one of Howards rat brigade, in typical Brutus two faced style sings his praises even today. He has nothing to resign over, he acted with integrity, Minchin unashamedly spouted. What cr-p!! he acted like a frenzied fool, one who saw what he and Abetz thought was a weak, unsure trembling treasury official whom they could milk and use to what they thought would be a triumphant march as executioners, to the gallows to see Rudd and Swan swing. Perhaps had they taken time to reflect on and absorb what Grech was really telling them, perhaps the disgusting scenes of Abetz bullying the timid Grech, like some inquisition interrogater it would not have been so blatantly obvious Abetz knew what the answers to his questions were.
Now this afternoon, Turnbull castes his informer aside as if some inconsequential strip of dirty rag. Proclaiming his innocent intent at all times, Turnbull now tells us, Gretch actually gave he and Abetz the questions to ask at the Committee hearing. Oh really, not what Mr Gretch has ever indicated. No mention of supplying written questions. Here we now have Turnbull looking after his own hide and is on the way to casting Abetz to the wilderness as well. Abetz asking questions of a witness who has supplied the questions and presumeably the answers, if Turnbull is to be believed, to a Senator who is doing the asking. This is becoming a tangled web and we know what happens to those caught in such a web.
Better Half said we must watch Oz Story tonight, it’s about the Turnbulls. With eyes watering from the moment the eight year old was condemned to boarding school and abandoned by the only personal contact with cold cruel world of privilege he knew and apparently trusted when his mother fled a loveless marriage, we awaited the arrival of Turnbull the Man. What we got was what we half expected - but at least we now know why. The political leadership options our culture has developed leave any thinking person in despair. (And that’s both sides of the House) The next and final act will be great blood sport for Political Ghouls as the Libs try to smile their way through yet another catastrophe. It makes it painfully obvious why Costello bailed: he would have had trouble avoiding the death seat this time around, eh? And poor Godwin? Geoffrey Rush can play him in ‘Canberragedon - The Movie’.
PS - loved your description of the Mad Monk Guy.
Utter tripe!!
Goblin Wretch weighs 46kg. True. So he’s in a weight-class of one. A shadow-boxer.
Tony Abbott said today that his three heroes were Santamaria, Howard and Tony Blair (the latter for going to war in Iraq).
With a moral compass like that, Tony should avoid Antarctic exploration.
very funny stuff aside from the tragedy of grech. I had already concluded that he must have concocted the email as I could’nt think of anyone else who would and didn’t think the libs would be that stupid after jackie kelly’s husbands antics I didn’t know he was in a psych ward. that is probably the best place for him. Loved the piece in general but thought guy a tad presumptuous saying ” he clearly found in the PS a framework etc etc.
Frank I am surprised the reason the Mad Monk includes Blair as one of his heroes isnt because Blair converted to Catholicism. Why he joined wouldn’t be to include the Monk and his boss Geo Pell on the Xmas card list. What a combination, Abbott as PM with a hot line to the Cardinal, taking us back to pre Vatican I. It wont be ‘Eat Fresh’ rather ‘Eat Fish’, following lashings by appointment.
Completely disagree about Turnbull. He may be impulsive but he was duped by Grech, as most Opposition leaders would have been in similar circumstances.
As for Abbott and others having a better chance at the next election, forget it. I’d sooner the Coalition stuck with Turnbull, stopped trying to kneecap him so they can reprise the Howard years, and let the man be himself. Then we might see a plausible alternative to Rudd.
perry the trouble is him being himself
Obviously Perry you didnt see Australian Story last night. He will never be a plausible alternative to Kevin Rudd. What sort of man castes aside a person who has fed him and his party juicy Treasury tit bits for years, when he is no longer of use. Its a low blow, but entirely in character, regardless if GG stuffed up the would be coup de grace. The public have made up their mind about Turnbull, any bets on his rating next survey?
Dr Harvey M Tarvydas
I am with RaymondChurch, Colin Prasad joining the STANDING OVATION your work deserves. Well done!
My expertise has earned me the nick name ‘psychology, psychology, psychology is everything’.
This Utegate is a plot sporned in a psychopath detention centre.
Even psychopaths deserve compasion, believe it or not, and you have demonstrated sweet kindness showing such to Godwin.
But he, just as the other two (however very seriously less robust as you say and with much more pathos in his delusion) was cruising through the process with a knife up his sleeve looking for a juicy back in the name of self interest.
Malcolm is a great person. We Australians need him more than he needs us. He could buy a yacht and sail it around the world and forget about us if he wanted to and who could blame him? He is in parliament because he genuinely cares about Australia. Leave him alone.
“He could buy a yacht and sail it around the world and forget about us if he wanted to and who could blame him?”
Poetry. Or pottery- I’m not sure.
Raymond, you can think whatever you like. A lot of journalists would not be happy no matter what Malcolm did.
Don’t worry Raymond. Malcolm has not gone away. He will be back on the 7.30 Report in due course. I’m not worried by your insults.
Jillian Blackall
Posted Tuesday, 4 August 2009 at 8:03 pm | Permalink
“Malcolm is a great person. We Australians need him more than he needs us. He could buy a yacht and sail it around the world and forget about us if he wanted to and who could blame him?”
Well Jillian, why don’t you suggest it? Did you see his press conference tonight? Wow! If he wasn’t telling porkies I’ve lost ‘the gift’?(my secret?) For picking liars? The more I hear the ‘smellier’ it becomes. I think it was cooked up before the Senate ‘inquisition’ of 19th June, including the ‘tearful’ voice of GG. I think Abetz is in it too. I think they made a joke of the Senate. I think they used the Senate for their own grubby lustful ends, and the 3 of them should be sacked. Turnbull, Abetz and GG. Anyone else (there’s more involved - Abbott?Minchin? to start with?)who’s proved to be involved in this grotty little episode for Turnbull’s political career/Lib’s cheap attempts to get rid of Rudd & Swan should go too!
Would someone please remind me of the Lib’s belief in democratically elected govts? “Respecting the will of the Australian people”. Who said that? Howard I think?It’s sickening! The ‘born to rule’ ideology is about the only one they believe in, including the next bit - ‘whatever it takes’?
Enjoyed the article Guy, and some of the comments too. I had a good laugh, thank you!
Liz, I must admit I couldn’t really be bothered getting into long arguments with people who are obviously anti-Liberal. However, ‘whatever it takes’ was a Graham Richardson expression. Labor Right are much more ‘born to rule’ than the Liberal Party these days.
What’s wrong with being antiLliberal? They measure success by length of tenure rather than achievements, they tear down anything they didn’t put up and they seek power for the sake of being in power and will ignore any convention or moral consideration to get it. You don’t have to go back to ‘75 to see that. Graham you are a really funny guy. Educated by the brothers? Jillian thank you for bothering to point out Richo’s quote. The idea that labor is born to rule after the Howard dark age is crazy. As for the mad monnk anyone who can defend the spanish inquisition as I heard him do is utterly unelectable even if he does have balls of steel.
Perhaps Jillian the reason you will not enter into the discussion, as each hour goes by, Turnbull and Abetz position becomes more indefensible. The pair of them are in deep shite and if you found Turnbulls complete dismissal of the whole affair yesterday with his only regret, he had met GG, as acceptable, then you have a serious problem regarding reality. As for Abetz whimpering he was conned by Mr Gretch, if that bully expects anyone to believe that pathetic excuse, he is not a fit person to be in the Senate, which I doubt he is anyway. No Jillian this has a long way to run yet. Lets always remember Turnbull and Abetz fired the first shots and they missed badly. The return fire is merely sniper activity thus far.
if you try and hit someone over the head with a stick, you’d better do it hard with something strong, Malcom tried and had his stick taken off him, he is now getting beaten by it daily, seems fair sport to me. At the very best he was stupid for not ensuring the email was real. Ole GG had issues, no-doubt, but he isn’t the true victim in this; it’s the Australian people (like me) who look to the opposition to provide a viable alternative government. I don’t care who the leader is, but guys…get your act together.
JILLIAN BLACKALL: “He’s in Parliament because he genuinely cares about Australia” Really? I would love to roll out a list-for your perusal-of all the reasons why Malcolm the Mad is incapable of caring about Oz. But it would be repetitious and far too long.
Instead I will present the evidence to show his moral imperatives are non-existent and his very soul is up for sale. All for self and power!
Try to look up some of his official utterances on television. The British flag forms his backdrop. Oh yes, it is the Australian flag but the only thing left is the Union Jack. I find it rather odd to see the once impassioned leader of the Republican Party being draped by the British flag. Would you not agree?
Venise, I usually find your contributions interesting even if I don’t agree, but to suggest that Malcolm is no longer a republican is silly.
Wow. This is a lot of hate on this board.
I thought you people would’ve lightened up since, well, you know, that last election that you actually WON.
Michael noone enjoys being really nasty but when there are deceptful sleezebags, telling porkies to save their own miserable hides, the people must have their say. The only honourable course for Turnbull and Abetz to take is resign. Then and only then will this episode be concluded.
If you’re going to use ad hominem arguments, at least make them vaguely amusing.
Raymond, they are almost ALL deceiptful sleazebags if you haven’t noticed
(to note, i was overseas during this whole utegate thing, so i’ve only just come back to it)
Personally i think it’s all much ado about nothing. Malcolm was stupid and should just apologise to Kevin and Wayne and be done with it. I think his self inflicted wounds are enough as who’s going to believe him next time even if it is true?
I mean, leaked emails, come’on.. i can forge an email right now by just modifying the text of something someone just sent me, and then print it out. Stupid Malcolm, stupid.
Though of course if someone broke the law, then they should be prosecuted. But i don’t think anyone is saying that.
JILLIAN BLACKALL: I can only go on available evidence. And the available evidence shows Malcolm Turnbull against a Union Jack with no hint of the Australian flag. Also the available evidence depicts a man who would do a Faustian
deal with the Devil in order to get power, and revenge against Kevin Rudd. Power and revenge, and greed. The three most potent words in the English language. Thanks to his behaviour, nothing will convince me otherwise.
There is no obligation for Malcolm (or Senator Abetz) to resign. At worst, he made a serious error of judgement. The Opposition is expected to challenge the government. As I read somewhere but can’t remember where, it would take the left-leaning press in Australia to attack the Opposition for questioning the government.
There is no obligation for Malcom the Mad to resign says Jillian. Still waving the Liberal flag despite all the evidence against your hero. Despite the words of public service commissioner lynelle briggs, I guess in your world it is ok to lie, deceive, throw your informer (GG) to the wolves. His arrogance knows no bounds and if you are happy with that, I really can’t be bothered discussing this with you. I dont have any respect for people with an attitude such as yours. You share Turnbulls arrogance. Dismissed.
Resign as what? If he were a minister, there would be a reason. But shadow ministers aren’t sworn in, so can’t really resign. Other than that, yes he did all you said. And it will hinder his chances of being elected.
Meski, resign as a front bench Shadow
Minister and get his sorry ars- to the back bench.
Depending on who has the majority on the select Committee of course he could well be found not guilty of anything. The Privledges Comm has wide powers and I understand in drastic cases can send a person appearing before it, to jail . Perhaps others more knowledgable on these points can clarify
Raymond, I had pretty much given up on discussion with the anti-Liberal subscribers on this thread. To avoid any doubt, I pointed out that I cannot see any obligation for Malcolm to resign. I agree there is no need for further discussion.