Extract from The Guardian
Energy is proving to be Abbott’s latest weapon in a bid to blow up Turnbull’s leadership. But will it succeed or backfire?
Given that 60,000 people at the most watch Alan Jones and Peta Credlin
on the Sky News network, their involvement in the uprising of pro-coal
Nationals MPs has remained under the radar. But make no mistake (as
Credlin would say), these two avid supporters of former PM Tony Abbott
are chiefly responsible for the rebellion.
Abbott’s most recent plan A has been to recreate the conditions that lost Malcolm Turnbull the Liberal leadership in 2009, in the hope of achieving a similar outcome.
“Does the Liberal party, nine years on, realise the wheel has turned full circle and we are back to where we were in late 2009, with Malcolm Turnbull trying to do a deal with the Labor party on emissions reduction?” the former leader none-too-subtly pondered in the media this week.
But there’s one big difference this time around, which has proven to be a major block to Abbott’s ambitions. This time, the most influential conservatives in the Liberal party – Peter Dutton and Mathias Cormann – are firmly on Turnbull’s side.
This conservative solidarity has made it impossible for Abbott to find the right weapon to blow up Turnbull’s leadership. Marriage equality failed to do the job, so the national energy guarantee is considered the next best thing, particularly given its symbolic connection with Turnbull’s last demise.
But not even the Neg could split off the conservatives loyal to the “Dutt-mann” duumvirate. When Kelly shopped around a letter to sign up conservatives to the pro-coal Monash Forum, he could barely muster 10 Liberal signatures. According to the Australian, up to six MPs refused to join “because they believed it might be a vehicle used to undermine the prime minister.”
So Abbott and his chief strategist Credlin turned to the other group of Coalition MPs that helped bring Turnbull down in 2009: the Nationals.
They’ve done so by agitating voters in Nationals seats with inflammatory comments about farmers having to bear more than their fair share of emissions cuts under the Paris target, including having to unnecessarily slaughter their stock.
This was kicked off by Kelly last week, who claimed on Jones’s Sky News program that the agriculture sector had no option but to “cull the herds” in order to meet the Paris target.
Jones picked up the theme, asserting this meant that 26% of Australia’s 20 million farm animals would have to go, listing these as 390,000 dairy cows, 780,000 pigs, 7.8 million beef cattle and 19.5 million sheep.
Jones has a direct conduit to these voters, the rural folk of New South Wales and Queensland, thanks to his syndicated tabloid radio show. Jones’s reach isn’t huge, but it’s enough to matter in marginal National seats. The shock jock is credited with helping to defeat Campbell Newman’s LNP government in Queensland with his pro-farmer, anti-coal seam gas campaign at the time.
Even less huge is the television ratings for Jones’s weekly Sky News show, which is around 60,000. But that doesn’t matter, because Jones knows that conservative Coalition MPs watch his show. They pay attention when Jones and his co-host Credlin – who both make much of their rural beginnings – give prominence to the issues facing rural Australians.
To reinforce the message, Abbott mentioned culled herds in his “leave Paris” speech this week, while Kelly upped the ante by calling for a sectoral “audit” of Australia’s Paris commitment to find out “for example” what it will cost the agricultural sector to get a 26% reduction in emissions.
So with an uprising of concerned Jones listeners in Nationals seats – many of which are marginal in Queensland – it’s hardly surprising the Nats’ party room has produced a two-page letter of pro-coal demands for Turnbull. The demands include a $5bn fund to provide off-budget equity in three new baseload power stations as the price for the junior Coalition party’s support of the Neg. It’s no coincidence that baseload of this kind can only be produced by coal, gas or hydro.
As the Canberra bureau chief of the Australian, Geoff Chambers, helpfully pointed out on Thursday: “Nationals leader Michael McCormack must deliver results on energy for his party room or face internal criticism that he lacks the ticker to take the fight to the Liberals.” Chambers added: “If he doesn’t nail an energy deal with Turnbull, Nationals will cross the floor and try to block the government’s national energy guarantee.”
There’s no points for guessing that deposed Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce, another member of the Monash Forum with a grudge against Turnbull, also has a role in the pro-coal push by his colleagues.
However, provoking the Nationals to a party room rebellion could prove to be an unsatisfying way for Abbott to wreak his revenge on Malcolm Turnbull. It will cause the PM considerable pain but, while Dutton and Cormann stand firm, it will do little to shift the numbers in the Liberal party room needed to “draft” Abbott back into the top job.
• Paula Matthewson was media adviser to John Howard in the early 1990s. She is a freelance writer and communication strategist
Abbott’s most recent plan A has been to recreate the conditions that lost Malcolm Turnbull the Liberal leadership in 2009, in the hope of achieving a similar outcome.
“Does the Liberal party, nine years on, realise the wheel has turned full circle and we are back to where we were in late 2009, with Malcolm Turnbull trying to do a deal with the Labor party on emissions reduction?” the former leader none-too-subtly pondered in the media this week.
But there’s one big difference this time around, which has proven to be a major block to Abbott’s ambitions. This time, the most influential conservatives in the Liberal party – Peter Dutton and Mathias Cormann – are firmly on Turnbull’s side.
This conservative solidarity has made it impossible for Abbott to find the right weapon to blow up Turnbull’s leadership. Marriage equality failed to do the job, so the national energy guarantee is considered the next best thing, particularly given its symbolic connection with Turnbull’s last demise.
But not even the Neg could split off the conservatives loyal to the “Dutt-mann” duumvirate. When Kelly shopped around a letter to sign up conservatives to the pro-coal Monash Forum, he could barely muster 10 Liberal signatures. According to the Australian, up to six MPs refused to join “because they believed it might be a vehicle used to undermine the prime minister.”
So Abbott and his chief strategist Credlin turned to the other group of Coalition MPs that helped bring Turnbull down in 2009: the Nationals.
They’ve done so by agitating voters in Nationals seats with inflammatory comments about farmers having to bear more than their fair share of emissions cuts under the Paris target, including having to unnecessarily slaughter their stock.
This was kicked off by Kelly last week, who claimed on Jones’s Sky News program that the agriculture sector had no option but to “cull the herds” in order to meet the Paris target.
Jones picked up the theme, asserting this meant that 26% of Australia’s 20 million farm animals would have to go, listing these as 390,000 dairy cows, 780,000 pigs, 7.8 million beef cattle and 19.5 million sheep.
Jones has a direct conduit to these voters, the rural folk of New South Wales and Queensland, thanks to his syndicated tabloid radio show. Jones’s reach isn’t huge, but it’s enough to matter in marginal National seats. The shock jock is credited with helping to defeat Campbell Newman’s LNP government in Queensland with his pro-farmer, anti-coal seam gas campaign at the time.
Even less huge is the television ratings for Jones’s weekly Sky News show, which is around 60,000. But that doesn’t matter, because Jones knows that conservative Coalition MPs watch his show. They pay attention when Jones and his co-host Credlin – who both make much of their rural beginnings – give prominence to the issues facing rural Australians.
To reinforce the message, Abbott mentioned culled herds in his “leave Paris” speech this week, while Kelly upped the ante by calling for a sectoral “audit” of Australia’s Paris commitment to find out “for example” what it will cost the agricultural sector to get a 26% reduction in emissions.
So with an uprising of concerned Jones listeners in Nationals seats – many of which are marginal in Queensland – it’s hardly surprising the Nats’ party room has produced a two-page letter of pro-coal demands for Turnbull. The demands include a $5bn fund to provide off-budget equity in three new baseload power stations as the price for the junior Coalition party’s support of the Neg. It’s no coincidence that baseload of this kind can only be produced by coal, gas or hydro.
As the Canberra bureau chief of the Australian, Geoff Chambers, helpfully pointed out on Thursday: “Nationals leader Michael McCormack must deliver results on energy for his party room or face internal criticism that he lacks the ticker to take the fight to the Liberals.” Chambers added: “If he doesn’t nail an energy deal with Turnbull, Nationals will cross the floor and try to block the government’s national energy guarantee.”
There’s no points for guessing that deposed Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce, another member of the Monash Forum with a grudge against Turnbull, also has a role in the pro-coal push by his colleagues.
However, provoking the Nationals to a party room rebellion could prove to be an unsatisfying way for Abbott to wreak his revenge on Malcolm Turnbull. It will cause the PM considerable pain but, while Dutton and Cormann stand firm, it will do little to shift the numbers in the Liberal party room needed to “draft” Abbott back into the top job.
• Paula Matthewson was media adviser to John Howard in the early 1990s. She is a freelance writer and communication strategist
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