Extract from The Guardian
The PM arrives home to all the ingredients for bloodletting on a
historic scale amid Tony Abbott’s fresh attack on Julie Bishop and the
Mal Brough saga.
Malcolm Turnbull will return from the Paris climate talks to some tough
decisions on how to handle the Mal Brough furore and Tony Abbott’s
criticism of Julie Bishop.
Photograph: David Gray/Reuters
Malcolm Turnbull
is flying home from Paris overnight. When he arrives in Canberra at
dawn on Wednesday, he’ll step back into domestic political reality. That
reality is looking rather frayed around the edges.
The big question after any leadership change is always whether or not the various protagonists can control themselves.
Labor proved comprehensively during the Kevin/Julia saga that internecine personality conflict was actually more important than being in government.
The rank self-indulgence of that collective judgment seems incomprehensible, but there it was. We all saw it. It’s hard to expunge it from the memory bank.
Now, 11 weeks on from the change in the Liberal leadership, it’s becoming the Coalition’s turn to decide whether staging a gory revenge tragedy is more important than being in government.
Turnbull is riding high in the opinion polls, but in the toxic little half-deranged world that is Australian politics, the new prime minister has Tony Abbott rampaging around like a wounded bull, defending his legacy, obsessively taking traitors to task.
Abbott has in an interview with Fairfax unleashed a fresh tirade about Julie Bishop, accusing her of peddling falsehoods about the events leading up to Turnbull’s ascension.
Turnbull also has conservatives spoiling for odd little proxy fights on the breadth of the government’s climate change commitments or how we talk about violent extremism.
Why? Just because.
There’s been so much combat in Australian politics in recent times the whole super structure actually seems profoundly disconcerted by the prospect of peace.
Animus, once unleashed, can be very hard to contain. Everybody seems to need the last word.
Adding to the basket of welcome-home presents, Turnbull will have to make a call about his special minister of state, Mal Brough.
Turnbull can’t ultimately control Abbott and the rusted-on haters – unless Abbott ultimately wants to sue for peace. A grand bargain between the two combatants is, actually, possible, but on current indications, fraught, particularly while both are so fully intent on their respective product differentiation.
But Brough is all Turnbull’s doing, and entirely within his control.
The special minister of state is in the ministry now not because of his soaring political talents but because he helped Turnbull blast Abbott out of the prime ministerial suite.
We are now in the second week of Labor’s persistent and forensic questioning of Brough about his conduct during the James Ashby/Peter Slipper affair – which serves to remind the public that the minister Turnbull appointed to a portfolio safeguarding the integrity of the parliament is facing an Australian federal police investigation.
Tuesday wasn’t a great day for Brough.
In attempting to fortify his defences, he bought himself a fight with the 60 Minutes program, and in the process, opened himself to fresh arguments that he had misled the parliament.
Courtesy of some fresh Ashby reflections in the Australian, curious eyes also drifted in the direction of another Turnbull loyalist – fellow Queenslander Wyatt Roy.
Federal parliament sits for two more days before Turnbull attempts to launch himself into summer with an innovation statement and the release of the new economic forecasts.
This Brough choice is squarely on the prime minister.
These are supposed to be exciting and realistically optimistic times, after all.
Best mind the clutter.
The big question after any leadership change is always whether or not the various protagonists can control themselves.
Labor proved comprehensively during the Kevin/Julia saga that internecine personality conflict was actually more important than being in government.
The rank self-indulgence of that collective judgment seems incomprehensible, but there it was. We all saw it. It’s hard to expunge it from the memory bank.
Now, 11 weeks on from the change in the Liberal leadership, it’s becoming the Coalition’s turn to decide whether staging a gory revenge tragedy is more important than being in government.
Turnbull is riding high in the opinion polls, but in the toxic little half-deranged world that is Australian politics, the new prime minister has Tony Abbott rampaging around like a wounded bull, defending his legacy, obsessively taking traitors to task.
Abbott has in an interview with Fairfax unleashed a fresh tirade about Julie Bishop, accusing her of peddling falsehoods about the events leading up to Turnbull’s ascension.
Turnbull also has conservatives spoiling for odd little proxy fights on the breadth of the government’s climate change commitments or how we talk about violent extremism.
Why? Just because.
There’s been so much combat in Australian politics in recent times the whole super structure actually seems profoundly disconcerted by the prospect of peace.
Animus, once unleashed, can be very hard to contain. Everybody seems to need the last word.
Adding to the basket of welcome-home presents, Turnbull will have to make a call about his special minister of state, Mal Brough.
Turnbull can’t ultimately control Abbott and the rusted-on haters – unless Abbott ultimately wants to sue for peace. A grand bargain between the two combatants is, actually, possible, but on current indications, fraught, particularly while both are so fully intent on their respective product differentiation.
But Brough is all Turnbull’s doing, and entirely within his control.
The special minister of state is in the ministry now not because of his soaring political talents but because he helped Turnbull blast Abbott out of the prime ministerial suite.
We are now in the second week of Labor’s persistent and forensic questioning of Brough about his conduct during the James Ashby/Peter Slipper affair – which serves to remind the public that the minister Turnbull appointed to a portfolio safeguarding the integrity of the parliament is facing an Australian federal police investigation.
Tuesday wasn’t a great day for Brough.
In attempting to fortify his defences, he bought himself a fight with the 60 Minutes program, and in the process, opened himself to fresh arguments that he had misled the parliament.
Courtesy of some fresh Ashby reflections in the Australian, curious eyes also drifted in the direction of another Turnbull loyalist – fellow Queenslander Wyatt Roy.
Federal parliament sits for two more days before Turnbull attempts to launch himself into summer with an innovation statement and the release of the new economic forecasts.
This Brough choice is squarely on the prime minister.
These are supposed to be exciting and realistically optimistic times, after all.
Best mind the clutter.
No comments:
Post a Comment