Where did Joe’s mojo go?
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The contrast, as Kevin Rudd invariably says, was stark. Joe Hockey sat slumped on the seat nearby, gazing up at the Reps chamber ceiling, while Malcolm Turnbull explained why he would be voting for the Government’s CPRS bills. The body language, surely, was deceiving. Turnbull might have appeared forthright, aggressive even, as he expertly articulated the case for the CPRS far, far better than anyone from the Government ever had – particularly when, in three short sentences about how each recent decade had been hotter than the previous one, he demolished the myth of global cooling promoted by the likes of Tony Abbott. But Turnbull was alone, reading — if the Press Gallery commentary is correct — the last rites over a political career wrecked on a point of principle, offering only a glimpse of what might have been had he ever mastered his many faults and coupled his undoubted brilliance with a more consultative and reflective style. But Hockey remains Shadow Treasurer, a key part of the Coalition economics team, under a leader polling better than Turnbull ever did, perhaps a mere 2-3% away from achieving his career goal of Treasurer. So, Joe, why the long face? It might possibly be that Hockey was envious that he could never give a speech as good as that, for Turnbull’s speech was, instantly, a classic of Australian politics. So what if it was delivered to a near-empty chamber? Its content was scintillating. Australian politicians don’t do soaring rhetoric or great oratory and there was none of that in Turnbull’s speech, but there was an intellectual rigour and cold, hard refusal to countenance bullshit that is sadly lacking in modern politics (and, in truth, much of Turnbull’s own period as leader). No politician, from any party, has ever nailed the case for action on climate change so succinctly, and no politician — and certainly not Kevin Rudd — has ever come close to explaining so clearly why a market-based mechanism is preferable. And in his comprehensive demolition of the Abbott plan — all delivered without mentioning Abbott or the details of the plan, or anything that could be construed as personal criticism — Turnbull has not merely provided the Government with perfect soundbites, but with perfect talking points for its own use. In fact, it did Hockey great credit that he showed up for the speech when it might have been easier to stay away and try to ignore what was happening. Only he, Russell Broadbent and Petro Georgiou were there for all of it. But Hockey has been in a funk since the leadership spill and what was commonly agreed to be his poor handling of it. True, he has been keeping up his Parliamentary workrate in Question Time – bellowing incredulously at every utterance from Wayne Swan, laughing operatically at Kevin Rudd, shaking his head in outrage at Harry Jenkins’s bizarre rulings. And there’s recently been a new addition to Hockey’s family, meaning he could be forgiven for paying more attention to the domestic front than usual. But Barnaby Joyce has had a far higher profile on economic issues – disastrously, from the Coalition point of view. Have a look at the Liberal website where shadow ministers dutifully stick up press releases and transcripts – Hockey is nearly absent. He dutifully followed Abbott round a Canberra supermarket last week, holding watermelons forlornly, as if unable to quite believe that “retail politics” literally meant “retail politics.” Especially as part of a scare campaign on a policy he had strongly supported until December:
And sure, it doesn’t help that he found time to play dress-ups on television in the weekend, though if a politician can’t mock himself and show a lighter side occasionally, it’s a pretty sad world we condemn our elected representatives to:
But with Abbott by his own admission uninterested in economics, that leaves Hockey as the economic leader of the Opposition, and he hasn’t been doing much leading. With the Government homing in on the Abbott risk factor, economic credibility will become more and more important. You can’t win a scare campaign if your opponents can show you’re as scary as you say they are. Hockey can’t sit back and let Joyce wreck what little remaining credibility the Coalition has. He has to get in the ring and start punching. He might envy Turnbull, who can sit on the backbench and do whatever he pleases, but he has thrown in his lot with Abbott and now has to live with the consequences. At least Abbott won’t die wondering. It’s time his Shadow Treasurer adopted the same approach. |
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68 Comments
Maybe Joe’s ruminating about his political options - he isn’t a One Nation - Shooters’ Party (LNP) type. Perhaps it isn’t Malcolm’s political obituary that is the issue, rather Joe’s. He made a Twitter comment last week indicating how much he misses his family. And he’s a decent man.
Joe’s heart just isn’t in it anymore. You can tell by the body language.
What he should have done, as did Turnbull, was put his principles before his ambition, and go to the backbench with Turnbull and Michael Keenan, who seems also to have not accepted Abbott’s offer to sup from the poisoned chalice he was offering. Then they could have formed a more substantial rump of principled, small ‘l’ Liberals just biding their time and waiting for Barnaby Joyce and Tony Abbott and crew to inevitably implode.
I have no doubt that Joyce would have jumped at the chance to become Shadow Treasurer, and were it not for the fact that that person needs to be in the Lower House, he probably would’ve been offered the job by the Mad Monk.
So, no doubt, under the threat of dire pre-selection consequences, which seems to have been enough to silence all the other, ‘once-were-principled’ Coalition MPs from crossing the floor with Malcolm, Hockey has half-heartedly gone along with Abbott.
Good article Bernard, I got a similar feeling watching Joe there, chin resting on his hands. For some reason I feel sorry for Joe.
Love the ‘Want to meet sexy people’ ad on the video in the email. You do everything on purpose, clearly.
After being passed over as leader it was clear Joe’s best political years were behind him.
By throwing his weight (and future) behind the Member for Goldman Sachs it was always going to end in tears.
The final nail was yesterday’s moral supporting of Turnbull alongside feculant Liberal stain Petro Georgiou. The writing was on the wall for all to see.
Rather than letting a bitter, power drunk liberal stooge drag Hockey down to his level he should spend more time with his family.
He is a decent man…and they deserve it.
“Turnbull’s assistance” - with his public persona, and reasoned but unpopular views on climate and what needs doing to address the problem - “I’m all out of life-savers would a brick do?”
The body language, the body language! Joe Hockey looks as if some giant had picked him up off the floor and hung him-by the shoulders on the nearest wall.
If you have no faith in your own leader, and declining faith in the party that installed him, then it may be very hard to muster up more than a semblance of enthusiasm.
Also, it is a bit of a journalistic trick to say that the Coalition is within sight of overtaking Labor. Nobody really believes that, least of all Bernard Keane.
Turnbull is a class act.
Turnbull is a knob!
Excuse me but has anyone noticed the latest Newspoll - yes that one - the one that has Labour on 40% primary votes & Liberals at 41%.
If Turnbull was a class act that makes Abbott, the George Clooney of Oz politics..
Slightly OT Bernard but why do people think MT’s political career is over? Personally i think he has come out of loosing the leadership much better than he was holding it. That was a magnificent speech and it really does show a glimpse of what that man is capable of.
Once the far right experiment implodes Malcolm will be standing there with his integrity intact, his political judgement proved right and widely perceived as the man who sacrificed his political career for the good of the nation, all at a time where the party will be desperately looking for a leader. If Malcolm has learned from his failure and can adjust his management style I think his future in politics may be brighter than we currently think.
“If Malcolm has learned from his failure and can adjust his management style I think his future in politics may be brighter than we currently think.”
You may be right but that future won’t be in the Liberal party.
Turnbull was the most dangerous experiment the Libs have ever tried.
Somewhat like making Phillip Ruddock leader of ALP.
@OBlizzard
“…That was a magnificent speech and it really does show a glimpse of what that man is capable of…”
Amidst Malcolm’s apparent ignorance of the scandal engulfing the AGW scientific “consensus” and all the soft-left pandering and environmental altruism, exactly what was so magnificent about his speech?
He sounded more like Al Gore than a future Prime Minister or Party leader.
And apart from a proffering a facile “market-driven” solution - likely the same “solution” that precipitated the most recent GFC - what did he really say about energy security and future economic prosperity for Australia beyond ritual floggings as penance for our rampant materialism?
Really, I’d like to know.
@Michael
you should read Possum’s analysis of Abbott’s polling figures that suggests Abbott is in a worse place then Latham. His honeymoon will be a lot shorter.
A few more ironing quips, another couple of slips from Barnaby Rabble, and Abbott will be in negative approval rating by March.
I just heard Gillard’s wonderful mousemat speech in QT. The Government sound like they are enjoying question time, secure in the knowledge that they are going to win every day in Parliament.
@Skink,
And then there was Barnaby Juiced’s bold, or is that ‘courageous’ assertion today that Australia’s ‘Trillion Dollar Economy’(as the Coalition used to remind us ad nauseum), was in danger of defaulting our Sovereign Debt. I imagine he’s trying to link the state of our economy in the public’s mind with the PIGS(Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain).
Um, no, BJ. Our debt to GDP ratio, Bond Rates, and a myriad of other statistics and reports, from such bodies as the IMF, all point to our country having one of the most robust and healthy economies at the moment.
@Michael
George W Bush was elected twice. You are confusing class with popularity.
Took the words from me Skink….The Govt were happy guys an gals in action in QT.
After Abbotts impression yesterday, while moving his no confidence motion, of a loopy escapee from the jungles of Borneo,today he lost the plot completely. His body language becomes more peculiar by the day, he must be on the same stuff Barnacles Joyce is on. His insination Rudd had caused electricity prices to rise in WA was plain absurd and Gillard exposed he is a liar over those claims of his the Nurses Assoc have been done over with the new work related policy. The nurses have denied ever saying they were not happy, never spoke to Abbott, are perfectly satisfied with the Govt. Abbott has form, his jack boots issued to him by Howard in 2007 are obviously still shiny, waiting to start head kicking again. This is the devout Catholic, we are led to believe, the perfect family man, he who fears his Gods wrath. What, to quote him, CRAP.
Every day is proving what a dangerous man he is. The honymoon will not last long.
“Would you want “Barnaby Abbott” managing your super?”
With Joyce, Abbott, and Hockey (“JAH full, Herr Kolonel!”), “the financial cock-pit of the alternate government” (imagine them “managing” our GFC?), so publicly concerned about the effect of Rudd’s “great big new tax” on our food and groceries, “down the track”, out and about on these much publicised but little media queried stunts :- I’m an adherent to the economic “theory” that “during times of shortage, prices go up”? With their approach to climate change, and what that would mean to our food supplies, they’re obviously “sceptics” on that front too?
If climate change is real, as so many experts agree it is, what will food and other “costs”
go up under policies of a government that doesn’t believe it exists, and doesn’t want to get out of it’s own self-induced coma to address any such problem?
Sure prices will go up with these initiatives of Rudd’s government, but who can say what they’d go up if, say 15 years ago, governments around the world, including theirs, had started looking at the problem seriously, and perhaps taken a few steps to address it? Instead of placing their collective heads up the bums in the sand of their various “commercial sponsors”, and addressing “the problem”? Now, with so little apparently changed in their collective ethos, they, and those “mates” with still so much to gain, think they deserve another go …… “at replacing those heads”?
He’s got you all scared hasn’t he??
I sense it in your squeaky blogs.
You’re starting to feel the ground shifting aren’t you?
@Stephen Wong
Don’t look at me brother, I think Turnbull is a wood duck.
you wish it were so, don’t you, Michael.
you sound like the Americans shouting that Palin has got the Democrats running scared, when it is the moderate wing of her own party that is truly browning its pants at the damage she will do among independant voters. That rumbling you hear is not the ground shifting, it’s your bowels moving.
I will bet you $1000 to your favourite charity that Abbott’s net approval rating is negative by April 1st.
come back in April when Abbott has been done to a turn, and we will see who is the fool.
Yeah, and Kristina Keneally is starting to look like a long-term prospect now that Abbott has given David Clarke his imprimatur…watch the NSW budgie smuggler make his comeback, now that the right is in control of the “liberal” party.
mere 2-3% last time i look ed Bernard it was more than that dont you read your own blogs
see the last morgan and the last neilson and essential do you take your guidence from news poll also just like the abc.
I AGREE WITH THE LADY IN VIDOEO pity the journalists did not say something
i think you just mention ABBOTTS WORK CHOICES AND ALL ELSE WILL BE FORGOTTEN
lets forget about Turnbull, he is gone, done and dusted. The experiment failed. Highly intelligent - yes, proven businessman - yes, politician - no. I’ll put myself out on a limb but I actually think that Turnbull was in politics for the right reasons, but he is yesterdays news.
I wonder what type of leader Hockey would have made? of course he is competent but I don’t think he has the x-factor to be a leader and for me, is too predictable. He appears to be a helluva nice guy but nice guys normally don’t get to the peak of the mountain. His communication techniques don’t ‘cut through’ like Rudd and Abott’s do.
Hockey doesn’t (and won’t) inspire me as a Treasurer, just like Swann doesn’t inspire me either. In contrast to Keating and Costello, we don’t have anyone that gives you confidence as a Treasurer!
TOM BOY I JUST READ YOUR THOUGHTS
i wonder if Joe is thinking what the am i doing here, if that is the case i really feel sorry for him
Perhaps he needs a bit of encouragement and i am being genuine here to make a decision to leave politics and enjoy his new little family after all that is really what life is about.
I think he is decent man to, and Mr. Turnbull as labor as i am i came to like him even after the email thing had settled i think it was his determination to do the correct thing re the ETS
But in the days of the republic debate i must say i also had a soft spot for his opinions then also.
But i will never ever change my vote ever.
The clowns of the coalition circus are living in a fool’s paradise. As soon as the Ruddbot and his cyborg sidekicks power up their electoral machine these awkward amateurs will be run off the stage.
MPoseurM -if you try to use words you don’t understand, try to spell them correctly - “alongside feculant Liberal stain “. That’s FECULENT” which probably describes you - I can just see you as the smelly boy at skool with whom nobody would associate, never picked for any team and not even smart enough to be a swot.
@Niall - “Ruddbot and his cyborg sidekicks”, I think you highlight the exact point which appears to be wearing thin with the electorate. If Q&A the other night is any guide, given the audience demographic was 16 to 25 year olds, the Ruddbot has an issue or three.
TOMBOY - Yeah, I wondered what Abbott had been smoking when he came to the defence of David Clarke, not least when he said (IIRC) that Clarke was a unifying influence when blind Freddy can see he’s the single most divisive and destructive identity in the NSW Liberals. I keep hearing commentators saying that Abbott isn’t a doctrinaire right-wing Catholic, but who else would defend Clarke?
TY_WEBB - the Q&A audience (and question askers) had a disproportionate representation of green blazers from Canberra Girls’ Grammar, the most exclusive private girls’ school in Canberra. You reckon any of them are Labor supporters?
maybe so Malcolm, I don’t care for Rudd or Abbott, but blind Freddy can see that Rudd and his party is under the pump and there is a growing undercurrent of discontent ‘out there’.
Observors say that the popularity of the ALP would always come back to more normal levels. Not sure if it is because I just got back from the gym and am due for a shower, but the smell is getting more and more apparent.
The lead up to the election will atleast provide plenty of humor for us Greens!
Tomboy has it right. TV showed the Liberal Caucus Room, and it looked like the Pope meeting with all the Vatican’s Cardinals. A bunch of old grey men. The two token female Bishops add no brain power. Hockey must feel like a whale out of water.
the cat stranglers trouble is he couldn’t run a bath
no management skills….
@AR
Feel better getting that off your chest?
Why do you crave my attention so badly?
It’s almost pathological.
Best to ignore MPM no matter how tempting it is to respond to her provocations. Responding to a troll only feeds her peculiar psychological needs.
Hi Beachcomber…I like your imagery. Just thinking back to the leadership spill meetings, perhaps now they might use grey or white smoke like when the Conclave at the Vatican elects a new Pope! And I do really feel for Joe Hockey - why put up with all of this, when he could get much more out of life and give more to his family?
Joe (Hockey) for PM!
I’ve got a better idea: Joe for Shadow Minister for Small Business. He’s a big man but a lightweight politician.
He is not up to the Treasury role and he does not exactly have a Finance spokesman who can back him up and gloss over his weaknesses.
Glad to see that Turnbull was thrown out as Leader . He is one person that should not be in the Liberal Party . He’s been a trouble maker ever since he entered Parliament and out to destroy the Coalition ! Of course the Labor Party is upset that he is no longer the Leader of the Coalition , he was their greatest asset .
I was disappointed to see Joe Hockey in the Chamber supporting Malcolm Turnbull who in turn supports a huge tax called the ETS .
Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd do not care for the Australian people , it’s more power and more money they are seeking . Down with both of them !
Was the GST a Great Big Tax? I’m confused.
And an unfunded slush fund to plant a few trees and hand out to farmers is what? A policy?
Spotter, just repeating coalition talking points is not an argument, and as for “Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd do not care for the Australian people , it’s more power and more money they are seeking “, that’s really infantile.
Christopher Dune ,
You dont really like hearing the truth about Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull . It appears obvious that you are part of the Labor Party and are in favour of an rip off ETS TAX ?
Well I and 80% of Australians who vote do not want this EXTRA tax . Kevin is going down in history with a Government who has invented new taxes as well has increased taxes .
This ETS is a money spinner ,there is no proof that it will save the planet and anyone who believes that are just dreaming . If Kevin Rudd wants to see a population of 35Million people then expect a huge jump in power usage !
As a note to Eponmous who mentioned GST …..dont forget when you go to the shops you are paying hundreds less for TVs, white Goods clothing has never been cheaper ets . Food ,there are no real difference in prices to what they were pre GST . If you want to complain then look at the hiked up prices of our power bills ets , once again by Labor Governments ! A farce on power bills increase because State Governments have sat back and done nothing to improve infrastructure >power and water , they have let equipment fail and become run down like everything else ! Once again everything points to the incompetence of Labor ,whether Federal or State .
Spotter, sorry I stopped reading after the first sentence. If you want people to take you seriously stop sounding like every blogger on Planet Janet’s articles.
Or just stay lame.
Your choice.
Don’t read my comments Christopher Dune . We all gather you want Kevin Rudd’s rip off tax .
Unfortunately you are a minority because 80% dont want it .
Spotter - you obviously show the right amount of abstract reasoning and critical thinking to make a valuable contribution to the Coalition, just like Barnaby. In fact, are you Barnaby?
Come on Spotter, come clean where did you get that 80% from? Do your own survey? you the mrs and the kids? Been 3 polls in last 2 weeks not one indicated 80% were against the Govts climate change policy.Its bad enough Barnacle and sloppy Joe throwing imaginary figures around along with the greatest loose with the truth exponant of them all, the refugee from the seminary, he who shacks up with birds out of wedlock, he the maddest Monk of them all.
Dear David and Tomboy ,
I don’t know what polls you people look at , more than likely ALP polls but recently a nineMSN poll showed 78% don’t want a ETS TAX . Anyone in their right mind wouldn’t want an extra tax , but maybe you people are not in that frame of mind .
Anyone for tennis?
x
Oh now come on spotter sport!!! A NineMSN poll, where you have to be a reader of the site to participate. A regular non scientific, margin for error 50%, poll. The same type of poll that Sky News run on their site, that gets 100 responses. If that is your source for your 80% figure, woops 78%, you have changed already and the question was, Do you want an ETS Tax? Conversation closed. Nothing more needs be said.Hell I give the News Ltd poll more credibility and thats saying something.
” Look he was, is and will forever be a man of integrity, a man in full, that’s just the type of politician he is. He may not go on to be Prime Minister but he will always be able to hold his head high and will always retain the admiration of decent Australians”
of whom do I speak?
Wrong!!!!!
Pottamus Beazley - possibly the most useless bag of flab that ever walked the halls of power - until Turnbull came along.
Oh dear, we have another numerical literate! LOL
Makes you wonder why they pay to read Crikey when they can’t even discern the difference between the results of the major pollsters and a flaky survey on NineMSN.
Spotter, you are so out of your depth.
Dear David ,
There is nothing stopping you from voting on the NineMSN site when they have polls daily . You too can be part of over 100,000 voters that do vote throughout Australia
I gather , you too are in favour of paying higher taxes on power bills ? LOL!! I really dont know too many people who would want to pay more taxes ,particularly when a couple of months back we had an electricity rise of 20% and the State Governments want to increase it further but I suppose there are the “Odd “exception who are willing to want to pay more taxes
and perhaps you are one of them 
and dear Christopher you are so ALPish
It must be the phase of the moon - another spawning of trolls such as Spotter and some other one, the name of which i’ve thankfully forgotten. However be sure that they’ll infest this site with their banal verboisty and prolix divetrsions. As David Sanderson pleaded PLEASE DO NOT FEED. One guess as to their source, surely the Moderatorator can check the teck thhangy and exclude them?
AR there IS a moderator? Well I never!!!
@ Christopher Dunne - I actually disagree with you but must admit I don’t know whether the 80% figure is fact or fiction as quoted by Spotter.
Sites like ninemsn (also, news.com.au) generate alot of ‘everday’ peoples polling, people that are not inclined to read quality websites or newspapers - people that are vote driven on scare campaigns etc. It’s sad but true.
Whilst I agree that there is a larger than normal margin of error in a poll like this, and is probably a poorly constructed and targeted poll, I wouldn’t be brave enough to disregard the results.
TY_W, just pop over to Possum’s blog and read the numbers of the last Nielson poll, were he concludes:
“An ETS as a generic proposition still has majority support in Australia for every cohort except among Coalition voters, where generic opposition to an ETS has a small plurality.”
So you’d argue that a poll with a sample of 1400, that shows majority support is trumped by a self-selected sample on 9MSN?
Nice try, but I don’t think you’ve got a clue what you’re talking about.
refer my post. I clearly indicated that I did not know whether the figure was fact or fiction, I clearly indicated that the poll was probably poorly constructed and finally, I clearly indicated that the poll was probably poorly targeted.
do i take stock of Nielsen? yes. do i disregard other polls? no. regardless of what Nielsen says Christopher, it isn’t that difficult to realise that the ALP is having problems selling the ETS. Whilst the lefties stay true to their colours, like I do, even they would admit that the ETS isn’t a top selling item - if they don’t, I’d say it is a cause for concern.
what I am saying that there is probably more truth to some of the polls conducted by ninemsn and news.com.au than meets the eye. The polls aren’t restricted to swinging electorates and often have a sample size of +10k. I am pretty sure, amongst other sources, that the political parties take these polls ‘on board within reason’.
as a new reader of crikey, I am amazed at how defensive the left and right are on each article and the predictable and ensuing personal insults that follow. Crikey should be renamed as a website for far right and far left supporters and not suitable for greens like myself.
TY_Webb: agree somewhat…I’m not a green, but a person that sits more in the centre. I don’t agree with everything you may say, similarly for the left and right; however, if you make a reasoned point, I like to consider it. The same goes for the other sides. However, polls like Ninemsn or the other instant ones on the News sites are completely unreliable, for example: (a) anyone can vote several times on the same issue - it’s easy…just delete cookies, use different browsers, to name a few ways; (b) only people with access to the sites will know about the “poll”, so what about those who don’t surf news sites all day…their vote doesn’t count. I’m sure there are many other ways that these “tests” are not valid or reliable. Thus, any conclusions drawn are quite shaky…and likely to be based on belief (or what one wants to see), rather than actual empirical evidence. Conversely, reasoned argument thrives on evidence and facts that can be tested.
Ah !
So AR doesn’t want to allow free speech ! Anyone who disagrees with Labor is to be banned from comment , is that right ?
Well you would go well in China my dear along with anyone who wants to silence free speech .
It’s called Communism , which apparently Kevin Rudd and the Labor Party so desperately wants !
Maybe half you people should spend time under a Communist rule and see how you feel where your rights are nothing !
I suppose soon “Democracy “will be just a word in the dictioary . Democracy, just wont exist in Australia , and I suppose that will make you all very happy ???
You’re still allowed to make a complete fool of yourself Spotter, and it’s good to see you taking full advantage of that.
“…AR doesn’t want to allow free speech…”
No.
AR is a boring silly little child who throws a tanty when he doesn’t get his own way.
Crikey is HIS personal chalkboard you see and he HATES to share.
Christopher Dunne ,
And you again show that you are part of the spoilt generation mob …You will learn one day about life when you eventially grow up ;D That is, if you ever do grow up …..
Peculiar ,
I have noticed there are a few kids on Crikey LOL!!
They may grow up one day
Spotter: I’ve noticed there are a few people showing signs of dementia (age and/or alcohol related) on Crikey as well!
Perhaps that’s why they voted for Labor , not knowing what they are doing ?
.