At 1pm AEDT today, the Liberal Party will meet for a leadership vote, with the only declared challenger to Malcolm Turnbull being Kevin Andrews.
I stand by the analysis I offered last night – Turnbull has the numbers, and if he has the will, he can re-establish his leadership on the basis of these events.
The numbers on the CPRS bill can’t be transposed to the leadership. The Nats don’t have a vote for that, and George Brandis on Lateline was very pointed in emphasising that Turnbull had a larger majority among *Liberals*. Brandis also commented that several who disagreed with Turnbull on the ETS strongly supported his leadership.
Tony Abbott’s behaviour, in praising Turnbull this morning, demonstrates that he knows which way the wind is now blowing, and wants to preserve his position in the face of possible retribution against those who’ve sought to bring their leader down.
Liberal MPs who want to chuck Turnbull out had the opportunity to do so last night, and didn’t take it? Why? Because he has a majority of the Liberal party behind him as leader. That will become clear when he defeats Andrews today.
Parliament rises for the year on Friday.
How, exactly, is he going to be toppled? By a strongly worded Wilson Tuckey email?
All this media stuff about the “killing fields of December” is all well and good, but they don’t decide the leadership on the basis of counting op/eds but by a vote of their parliamentary party.
As I argued last night, Turnbull now has the power to reward and punish, and the reporting of the lobbying before the meeting made it clear that his numbers people were concentrating dissidents’ minds about the long delayed reshuffle.
The Libs might of course be insane enough to topple him this afternoon, but if not, he’s got til February to re-establish his leadership, and has some weapons with which to do that. It’s not certain that he will do so, but in my view, he has the chance to rebuild his position, and I’d be very surprised indeed if he doesn’t take it. I imagine that he regards these events as a game changer. He’s clearly appealling over the head of his own party to public opinion, and that was made evident in his press conference last night.
The commentariat appear to be following the “doomed leader” script. What about the “strong leader stands up to dinosaurs in his own party and gains extra kudos” script? Or what about recognising that politics is more complex and unpredictable than a menu of ‘media narratives’ might suggest?
Update: The ABC is live streaming Kevin Andrews’ press conference here.
Update: Follow the Liberal madness on Twitter.
Update: Malcolm Turnbull has survived a secret ballot on a leadership spill motion 48-35.
Update: Abbott has resigned, further developments anticipated. Please comment on the new thread here.
All Malcolm’s Christmases have come at once.
He doesn’t run against Abbott, or Robb, or Hockey, or any one of a number of “not ready, but one day may be” candidates, but against Kevin Bloody Andrews.
It’s some coincidence the Aussies are playing the West Indies in a Test Match tomorrow, because Andrews stands less chance of victory than the cricketers from the Caribbean.
Expect something in the order of 80-16, and Turnbull to lead the Coalition to the next election, where he’ll get creamed.
Spot on, Howard. Turnbull will be relishing taking on Andrews. And Rudd will be relishing taking on Turnbull.
Sure, Turnbull will beat Andrews. Who wouldn’t beat Kevin Andrews? Merely beating him won’t be enough, because Andrews is a joke. Turnbull will have to give him a drubbing.
If Andrews > 20 votes, the dogs will continue barking that Turnbull is finished. Like with Simon Crean, this will become self-fulfilling. The destabilisation will continue over Christmas and into the new year.
If I were Rudd I’d go the polls in March.
What a glorious outcome. Turnbull wins – he stays leader for a few more months till Hockey grows some balls – so ongoing turmoil regardless or Andrews wins, the ETS legislation is lost and we get a double dissolution election – and given the current climate of extreme heat and bushfires fresh in the minds of voters, the fact we’ve managed to avoid recession et al – you’d have to assume that the timing couldn’t be worse for the coalition.
Oh joy – what fun!
Excuse me while I pick myself up off the floor. I just fell off my chair laughing.
Horrible thought: What if Andrews wins?
This is better than the Days of Our Lives and The Bold and the Beautiful combined.
Who said politics wasn’t fun?
On a more serious level, according to an interview on ABC2 Breakfast, Tuckey reckons Turnbull will win (of course, unless these characters are a bunch of bonking mad ratbags and you can’t rule that out) but it will set the ground for a more serious challenge early next year. So, for whom is Andrews the stalking horse. My bet is Abbott.
Update: The ABC is live streaming Kevin Andrews’ press conference here.
Matthias Cormann, Brett Mason and Mitch Fifield have all just quit the front bench.
So there’s three votes for Andrews.
I have to eat me words about Malcolm not calling a party meeting. But I can’t. I’m too busy guffawing.
Andrews is emphasising his sense of humour among his qualities for the leadership.
Three leadership elections in 2 years.
Labor, in the five years after Tampa, had two uncontested ballots and three leadership elections. And there was a whole industry at the time declaring the party doomed.
We haven’t seen a political party this rooted since the United Australia Party. Great parties don’t die very often — sit around, grab popcorn, CHERISH it.
Update: Follow the Liberal madness on Twitter.
Even allowing for the unrepresentative nature of MSM blog threads, it is clear that there is something of a mass base for denialism – nowhere near a majority of popular opinion, but certainly not a trivial minority – and that this base is deeply aggrieved by Turnbull’s (and now the Liberal Party’s) stance on the CPRS. They will certainly not become less aggrieved if Turnbull retains the Liberal leadership. An interesting question then is what will the denialist base do if some anti-charismatic political adventurer appears between now and the next Federal election and offers them an alternative to voting for the major parties? If this happens, what then will be the response of the Liberal National Party in Queensland given that electoral competition from such a political adventurer will probably be particularly fierce up here, and what implications will this have for the Federal Coalition parties?
I’m a righteous Christian named Kevin
I’m the yeast of the Liberal leaven
I’m obeying God’s Will
In calling this spill
As Turnbull will wreck Howard’s heaven.
So, Paul, is your question one of whether the Liberal Party will split?
I suspect that, if Turnbull is rolled for Abbott (let alone Kevin f***ing Andrews), then a large number of parliamentary Liberals would need to reconsider their options.
@Paul Norton:
I’ve wondered about the potential for ‘anti-charismatic political adventurer’, but it’s very hard to intentionally set out to say, ‘Right, I’m going to form a third party and it’s going to take the country like wildfire’ — otherwise it would happen more often. These things happen by accident and extraordinary confluence of circumstances, and it’s very, very hard to set up candidates in a substantial number of seats without a prior base. I think the denialists are far more satisfied with an ‘entryist’ strategy — the Militant Tendency of Sutherland Shire, if you will.
“Dinosaurs” – maybe. It’s a conservative party. It’s position on refugees is old-style Howard-era and arguably more right wing than challenging the ETS. Turnbull showed no spine there.
If the so-called real liberals want a liberal party, they should start one. Your analysis Mark is interesting and as you note somewhat against the grain of the commentariat. You may be right about him surviving, it’ll be interesting to see.
Andrews is an awful creature, but he could be good for the left. A bit like making Dean Mighall leader of the ALP would be for the right…
Oh great @7. Kevin Andrews is such a funny guy. That has to be an advantage. But, on the other hand, maybe he should just have gone for the funeral director to the broad church pitch. He and Phillip Ruddock, as a team.
Comedy gold. I hope he wins. That would make my year.
All glee aside (“People skills”!) I’ll be most interested to see a reshuffle in the next week or so. Whoever wins it’s an obvious opportunity to reward friends and punish enemies.
All aboard the Alex Hawke bandwagon…
Tery #12 and BlackMage #13, you both raise interesting points which I might want to think about for a while before responding.
Pyne was pretty emphatic on WAN, could be a no show on the hands in the first count. What a farce! Maybe the real world temperature is leaking into the liberal party room or are they just working too hard…
It just came to me, Andrews reminds me of a young John Howard.
Think about it.
Gawky, nerdy, no charisma, incompotent at his ministerial job, obviously ambitious and with an inflated opinion of his own worth, ultra right wing, racist, xenophobic, classist, a bully. You can go on about the similiarities with Little John. Andrews is a clone.
And someone here reckons he’ll get 20 votes for leader?
Jeez thats a telling indictment of the Libs..
Dunning-Kruger Effect in action!
Just heard on Sky News, the Parlt report on Utegate will be tabled this pm. Maybe thats why Malcolm is happy to have the spill vote dealt with first. Oh what interesting times we live in (old Chinese curse).
This is better than a soapie! I do think it makes it more likely Turnbull will send his high profile detractors to the backbenches.
More broadly, its got to be making Rudd think about an early poll or a DD.
And the parallels with he 1909 fusion libs are growing in the anniversary year: two camps that HATE each other only bound together by anti-labour sentiment.
Lefty E@22
I think that in the “hard right” camp the hatred of Turnbull has exceeded that of the Labor Party. If only “anti-Labor sentiment” united them, that owuld be business as usual for how the Liberal Party deals (or fails to deal) with its own factions.
I’m not familiar with how the Liberal Party decide these matters but could Andrews be a stalking horse?
His candidature is not aimed at winning but seeing the level of discontent.
If this is high can a second challenger then announce they want to stand?
I’m keen for some Kevin on Kevin action.
Let us stop this incessant chatter – hold hands with bowed heads – and pray for Kevin Andrews. He alone can wrest control of the Party from the fifth column.
Do I keep an eye out for white or black smoke. I can never remember.
I want Andrews/ Ruddock: the Dream team!!
Mal’s never had it so interesting!
It just shows, in defence of the public sphere, how much more there is to policy and politics are than ‘mere’ running of commercial enterprises.
I’m coming round, if mostly through force of repetition, to jumping on your Alex Hawke bandwagon Liam.
As in, next effective Lib leader relatively untainted by anything other than slimy intra-Lib shenenigens nobody much cares about.
And look, it’s fun to watch the Libs swing around on the butcher’s hook, blowflies a-buzzin’, but for the sake of actual policy, governance etc, an Andrews win would be a disaster.
wbb #27, you keep an eye out for the colourless, odourless gas that is essential for life on Earth and that doesn’t cause global warming.
And which plum posting should Rudd bestow upon to Big Mal once Kevin Andrews has returned the Liberals to their proper era.?
I think Turnbull is doomed because even though Andrews hasn’t a hope of rolling him, there’s no way that Turnbull can heal this schism. The stalking horses will continue to stalk until they get their opportunity. That may not be until after the next election, but it does mean the Libs are stuffed in the short to medium term. Someone else (god knows who) will take over after the next election. Turnbull can punish his detractors, but it won’t solve his, or his party’s problems. Disunity is death, and all that.
gonna hard be hard to spot then Paul – perhaps they’ll have to burn one of Wilson Tuckey’s old ties instead.
Andrews (or whoever opposes Turnbull) is a Minchin candidate. Minchin is just sending this one up for the slaughter but he has others willing to strap on the explosive vest (ack: Katz) for his Mullahness when the time comes.
My take on this is that Minchin ran the Libs via Nelson for that sorry period of time until Turnbull took over. Having finally exercised direct power over the Libs after decades of merely providing the rudder, Michin got to like the taste of it too much. Turnbull took Minchin’s plaything party away from him now he’s screaming Holy War.
Turnbull, in his way, has tried to de-Minchinize the Libs much as Rees decided to de-Tripodize NSW Labor. Tripodi has gone quietly for now, his bar fridge is full to stuffing with Lobster anyway, but Nick is screaming (by Andrews proxy).
So, who’s the next Minchin foot-soldier ?
I predict that Malcolm will emerge victorious, but it will be a hollow victory. The Party is damaged beyond all repair.
The Howard legacy dinosaurs will be forced to FIFO. And they’ll probably just FO.
Or they could do us all a favour and burn Ironbar.
Yes Malcolm will probably win, but of course that means that he will prevail on the CPRS, which means we’re getting just about the worst possible scheme ever locked in. Yay!
Motion for spill defeated: 48 to 35.
48-35.
Thirty five members of the Parliamentary Liberal Party voted for Kevin Andrews to lead the party.
Go on you guys. Let the Libs have it.
Malcolm wins 48 – 35
What worries me is that the polls are saying 55:45. How can it be that close after GFC, utegate and the ongoing LNP squabbles? What is it that the 45% can see that I can’t?
I misunderstood the tweets.
That is a slightly more reassuring result if it was a vote on whether to have a spill.
“Thirty five members of the Parliamentary Liberal Party voted for Kevin Andrews to lead the party.”
Not if the margin was over a ‘motion to spill’. That’s just a motion to put the leadership to the vote. Possibly some of the 35 voted for a spill but would vote for a candidate other than Andrews … technically.
God the Libs are a piece of work. A rabble.
Closer than I expected. Now for the night of the long knives.
Poll Bludger comments are reporting that the spill motion was defeated by 48-35.
how about this?
35 members of the Liberal caucus after, losing the 2007 election in 2007, are determined to lose the 2007 election again in 2010.
I am listening right now to ABC Radio National news in SA.
Their lead item was that Kevin Andrews was going to challenge Malcolm for the leadership and they had him saying why.
“Possibly some of the 35 voted for a spill but would vote for a candidate other than Andrews … technically.”
Surely the reverse is more likely.
People who would prefer to vote against Turnbull, but knowing that Andrews would not get the numbers voted against a spill.
Robert, Liberals are very good at this.
In Victoria, we lost the 1999 election twice, but we did it better the second time. The man mainly responsible for this is now Lord Mayor of Melbourne.
As I have said many times, some of which at this location, there should have been a massive sign erected inside the Liberal Party Room in Parliament House, Canberra, on December 1, 2007.
It would read: “WE ARE NOT GOING TO WIN THE NEXT ELECTION NO MATTER WHAT WE DO”
But we can’t help ourselves.
“In Victoria, we lost the 1999 election twice, but we did it better the second time. The man mainly responsible for this is now Lord Mayor of Melbourne.”
To be fair you also won the 1993 election twice, but then lost it on the third go.
Yeah, but we made the 1996 election the 1992 election. As a campaign strategy, it is flawless.
Watch Brumby try to make the 2010 election the 1999 election. They certainly did a good job of it in 2006.
It amazes me Brumby can still talk about “what the Liberals did in Government” when someone who turns 28 next year will have never voted in a Victorian State Election in which the Liberals were the incumbent.
If you can’t tell, I’m much more enthused about the 2010 State Election than the 2010 Federal Election.
Howard you wouldn’t be so amazed if you recalled that the vast majority of the electorate is, in fact, over 28 and tend to have long memories. Also, as you yourself have pointed out, people will only vote for a plausible alternative.
Has anyone asked the Lib candidates in Bradfield & Higgins how they would have voted? Might make the by-elections interesting.
This is just dumb.
Yes, I think there are still enough Kennett haters out there Howard C, to remind the youn’ns what it was like. A bit like the sour John Howard memory which will haunt the federal liberals for ages.
I must say ,though, that Ted has a better idea of how best to behave in opposition than the rabble in Canberra. He doesn’t shoot at every duck he sees. More experience I suppose.
After the spill motion was over Malcolm Turnbull lepat on the party room table screaming “Get their names! Get their names!”
Oh, hang on, its the Liberal Party in 2009, not the ALP in 1955.
Readers may recall that Kevin Andrews killed the NT euthanasia legislation on ethical grounds.
Looks like Kevin has finally found an ethically acceptable method of suicide.
Howard , that sign should have read: “WE’RE NOT GOING TO WIN UNTIL WE RE-MAKE OURSELVES AND UNITE BEHIND OUR LEADER.”
As things stand, you’ve just committed electoral seppuku, a year out from the next election.
With nearly half the party voting for a change of leadership, how can you possibly convince the people that you’re a united and coherent alternative Government? If you think the polls look bad now, wait until the fallout from this nonsense filters through.
Fair dinkum, the people that tried to roll Turnbull must have been channelling Mark Latham or maybe Groucho Marx.
You look like a rabble.
One is always loath to write off a major political party. But, as another commenter observed, the anti-Labor lot ain’t had it so bad since the UAP. And I don’t exactly think Turnbull is a Menziean type figure who is capable of building a new party out of the rubble. The comparison to the UAP is apt and, I see from an earlier comment I’m not the only one to make it. Unity won’t come from this rabble.
The best that can happen is we might end up with the Nats, a “warmista”* party of conservatives and a “denialist” conservative party, with the Nats never quite capable of making up their minds which one they will support. (Which is what we virtually have now.)
Does anybody think the trogydites are really going to rest now? Or that Malcolm wouldn’t have had to go to a spill if an acceptable candidate had thrown their hat in the ring?
*Warmista is an aptly revolutionary label. Think I’ll accept it with pride.
Interesting, if the spin Bernard Keane puts on things in Crikey is true, Malky played this better than I thought he had in him, effectively surprising his opposition and leaving little time for number crunching and hushed phone calls. Of course, as Bernard pointed out, he’s still stuffed – but the kind of maneuvering Bernard alludes to is what’s required to hold on to the job (dunno why you would want to, but whatever).
Evan
The reason they don’t unite behind a leader is because they think that if a Liberal leader isn’t commanding something like 50/50 TPP in the polls, then the leader is the problem.
Nelson wasn’t great, but he could have performed the Beazley 96-98 role if he’d been left to it, and was convinced that his chances of being the next Liberal Prime Minister was slim. Then he could have got on with the all important task of personnel and policy renewal.
Can anyone remember anything Beazley said or did during that first term of the Howard Government? No, and that is part of the reason he did so well in opposition the first time. He picked his spots, did the hard yards, and tried (fairly successfully) to play mistake free football.
But along comes people in boats and people in planes and the goalposts shift. The ALP get restless, install Crean, who may be the singularly most unlikeable leader of a political party EVER, and then get even more kooky with Latham. The mistakes were made between the 2001 election and the election of Rudd to the leadership, not before.
Indeed Paul … and a variant warmenista isn’t bad either. It’s much pithier than proponent of GHG mitigation policies.
Is anyone else seeing a wee parallel with Talcum’s work in the Republican movement? He gets wedged by a smarter opponent, at helm while own movement divides in two, movement fails for another 10 years.
From what I’m hearing, the Victorian state Liberals are just as riven by factional disputes as the federal libs.
The most recent state polling still has Labor way in front, which is a surprise for a decade-old government that is going OK but has had some very public screwups.
“perhaps they’ll have to burn one of Wilson Tuckey’s old ties instead.”
Hopefully it will still be ’round his neck
Paul Burns @59: this is a myth that grew in the telling.
It should be a source of embarrassment to any political party that an unprincipled nonentity like Kevin Andrews could even be pre-selected as a parliamentary candidate. For him to be considered a possible leader demonstrates the depths to which the Libs sank under Howard.
Frankly, I don’t think Crean was that bad, and if you’re talking about internal renewal didn’t he preside over a fair bit of that?
Maybe the leader is not the problem. There appears to be two teams within the party that agrees on nothing. Maybe they should split. One side going with the Nationals to form a new party. The other remain behind Turnbull, a party that covers both the bush and city, calling itself Liberal. It would be interesting to see where the public vote went in this scenario. This is not not too far stretched, as parties have done this in the past, including the prior Liberal party before Menzies created this one.
Today’s leadership result is really quite irrelevant. The damage has been done. While the reasons for the UAP’s lack of appeal was partly specific to the times – the UAP left Australia unprepared for defence against the threat of Japanese invasion with its ‘business as usual’ policy, more important perhaps was the electorate’s perception that it was the party of big business. This lost it middle class support – it never had the support of the working class –
The problem with the modern Liberal party is analogous. Try as the Warmistas in the party might, it is seen now as the party of climate change denialists, and thus, slightly mad and very out of touch, since most of us are somewhat convinced by catastrophic bushfires, catastrophic hurricanes, prolonged droughts and 1000 year floods and soaring spring temperatures (to state only the obvious signs) that global warming really is happening. Nutters like Minchin, Bolta and co. are just that – nutters – Thus, the Libs have lost that bougeois support which was the reason for its success and the ALP is a pale shadow of its old socialist self and thus safe – much as it saddens me to admit that. Thus, possibly, goodbye to the Liberal Party as we have hated and known it all these years.
Burns (above) offers deeper analysis than mere commentary on parliamentary shenanigans. Liberal Party factions represent fractions of capital. It is no error that Turnbull, by training a merchant banker and therefore by definition a bloody daylight robber, can smell the money available in carbon credit trading. The old money, represented by the Nationals, has done an excellent job for the rural bone heads by excising farm activity from the cap and trade scheme and they will continue to deny that there might be a problem so long as their self interest can hold out. In the meantime I’d suggest close scrutiny of where coal industry money has flowed would offer a good explanation of denialists not otherwise linked to the Nats.
Turnbull has orders of magnitude more guts than Tippy Costello.
Hope he tans the hides of the Liberal dinosaurs.
Australia needs an effective opposition party that scrutinises new legislation for effectiveness, rather than spending their time sharpening knives and planting them in colleagues’ backs.
Back to the Sunday after the Liberals (and Howard) were defeated. Peter Costello’s rejection of the leadership at that point and all his “will he, won’t he” behaviours until he finally left Parliament appeared to me to be driven by revenge against a party who had rejected him.Look where his desire for revenge at that time has led the Liberals today.I realise it’s drawing a very long bow to try to hook Peter Costello into today’s fiasco but the thought is there. What’s that about the words – revenge, taste, sweet, cold.
Costello’s got the best of both worlds. Never actually put to the test, so he can spend the rest of his life claiming he would have done it all so much better. While picking up a munificent income – including 90 grand a year for going to Kevin’s Future Fund board meetings. But, yep, I think you’re right – there’s a lot of angst about and all sorts of whacky underexamined emotions which follow on from his decision exactly two years ago.
The Liberal Party did not reject Costello. He never asked them.
People have short memories. This disunity is nothing compared to the 80s, and the Joh for PM campaign that actually saw the coalition split at the 87 election.
Perhaps it will get worse and destroy the party but we are far way from there yet.
The UAP analogy is also fairly naive. The UAP was formed principally to co-opt Labor converts (Lyons, Fenton and Hughes, who had split earlier). Not clear how it then didn’t have “working class” support. It was also not sustainable once these labor rats retired.
Yeah, I reckon this is more like the Fusion Liberals of 1909. Two camps who couldn’t loathe each other more (free traders and protectionists) brought together under one brand, with suspicions that one side is too close to labor (protectionists) – and that the other is high on differentiation, short on popular support.
Oh… and labor romping in the following election.
Matt C @ 79,
Not naive at all,Matt. By the time Menzies got control of the UAP after the death of Joe Lyons, the impetus of controversy over the Great Depression Battle of the Plans was well and truly over. as I understand it the UAP, ex-Labor leaders or not, was blantantly claiming to be the party of big business. This was especially so during the first Menzies Prime Ministership and after. If you don’t believe me have a look at the relevant volume of Documents in Australian Foreign policy, which spells out the permutations the party went through to maintain its business as usual policy, which in effect meant conduct of the war was not allowed to affect business profitability from up until the Menzies ‘All in” speech in I think early 1941. Ordinary people were being asked to make sacrifices but business was not. The parallels with the current CPRS seem obvious to my mind.
As for the Labor rats, Lyons, Fenton and Hughes weren’t the last Labor people to sell out on basic Labor principles and become virulently anti-Labor. Think DLP.
Some might argue that process has been occuring within the ALP since Hawke, too.
Good point about The Fusion. Lefty E.
I suspect these anti-Labor bust ups tend to follow a pattern, when they can’t end in a peaceful merger eg Nationals into UAP. I can’t see the Howardistas and small l Libs ever coming to a peaceful accomodation. If Kevin Andrews’ performance on 7.30 Report tonight wasn’t a warning shot across the bows on behalf of Nick Minchin to the Warmistas about not ditching the Howard legacy, I don’t know what it was. The breach really does seem irreparable.
Matt absentmindedly mistakes the formation of a party (the UAP) with its dissolution.
PB is correct. By 1945 the UAP had almost completely lost the urban working class vote. Menzies’ “forgotten people” strategy was aimed at giving them a home in a party that accepted much of the Laborite dirigisme of the WWII era, stimulated as it was by recent, bitter memories of the Great Depression.
The UAP by 1945 was a rump party which was unwilling to open its doors to people attracted by the nascent Menzian consensus. Menzies needed a new party. Voila! The Libs.
The present travails of the Libs are consequent upon Howard having demolished the Menzian consensus so laboriously constructed in the late 1940s.
The Liberal Right of 2009 want a party like the UAP. Malcolm Turnbull is the true heir of Menzies in that he is seeking to broaden the base of the party along the lines achieved by Menzies in the constitution and foundational principles of the Liberal Party.
A bit like Caligla’s humour one can imagine ie jokes about cutting off his uncle Claudius’ head.
But indeed, so humourous if he ran a joint ticket with Dracula the former AG: an obvious need for a deputy to be absorbing the blood off the liberal party-room floor.
Way to go Dorian and Dracula, the new team for portraits in blood!
“Malcolm Turnbull is the true heir of Menzies in that he is seeking to broaden the base of the party along the lines achieved by Menzies in the constitution and foundational principles of the Liberal Party.”
And what policies has he introduced, since he became leader, that lead you to such a conclusion? Mal, I think, is more the liberal of many folks imagination than reality. He just aint going to come out of the closet all shiny and progressive.
“And what policies has he introduced, since he became leader, that lead you to such a conclusion?”
Well, er none actually, but we live in hope, once he gets rid of half the party.
Heard of the ETS, Joe2?
No party in Australia is going to return to anything like the Menzian consensus — high tariffs, acceptance of compulsory unionism, a two airline policy, managed exchange rates, etc.
Turnbull is seeking new and relevant ways of broadening the base of the Liberal Party. Environmentalism is one of those outreach policies. It’s early days yet. Turnbull, as the inheritor of a sclerotic old party rather than, like Menzies, the founder of a new party, is forced to deal with the old forces rather than simply outflank them with a whole raft of brand new policies.
joe2,
The Menziean Libs weren’t shiny and progressive, but they did have the good sense not to dump Labor policies just because they were Labor policies. Menzies actually improved Labor’s welfare policies while in office; unfortunately I can’t remember how and don’t have relevant references here to check. Menzies’ education reforms in the tertiary sector with scholarships were good, though they didn’t go far enough.
Of course this was offset by a host of conservative policies especially in health, etc.
Yes, I probably should have been more careful with my words, Paul. The point remains, though, that Mal is no liberal and Katz has imaginitis. I kind of knew Katz would come up with his pathetic ETS attempt.
After that there is nothing, because Turnbull is just like Howard. It’s sad really that someone of his vintage is already such an old stick in the mud.
It’s only pathetic if it isn’t true, J2.
What, precisely, do you mean by “liberal”?
“People have short memories. This disunity is nothing compared to the 80s, and the Joh for PM campaign that actually saw the coalition split at the 87 election.”
The Coalition also split from Feb 1973 – May 1974, so it happens once during every Labor government. The right organisations just don’t deal with opposition very well. Sorry, but it’s true. The last two coalition splits were along party lines, but this current crisis is within the Liberal party. And instead of being a split between two acknowledged peers in the organisation, it appears to be a split between the Leader and a faction of heavyweight players, none of whom are prepared to step up and present themselves as candidates, so we have the farce of Kevin Frickin’ Andrews being presented as a potential ‘leader’, a man even the bookmakers refer to as ’someone else’. Lordy.
d
Word to the wise here. Politics is a game of contingency, context and chance. History is not much of a guide. It’s precisely the appeal to history’s appeal that shows how random it can be. One can look through endless studies in the Australian Journal of Political Science – there’s even one by Van Onselen – and despair of reducing it to some sort of statistical regularity or mathematical game.
Here’s a tip – Turnbull to come out of this stronger.
All that matters is that he’s had two wins in two days, and that most people in this country wouldn’t have been aware of the fact that there was a Liberal leadership challenge on til they got home and watched the 7pm news.
There’s a serious lesson in this about the gap between the obsessions of political tragics and the way voters intermittently pay attention to any of this. There will be one lasting impression from this all in most citizens’ minds, and it won’t be that Cory Bernardi resigned as a Parliamentary Secretary, which led… blah blah.
He’s the leader. He made the call. He’s modernised the party.
That’s it – simple messaging. It may or may not cut through but the rest is noise of interest to only about 4 or 5000 people in a country of 20 million plus.
Way it is.
Ps – and winning against Andrews gives him the chance to cast off the Howard ghosts. When Andrews gave his presser, it was all “Tell us about Workchoices, what about Haneef?”… the symbolism of a victory against such a discredited symbol of what the Howard regime stood for – lacking even whatever personal appeal Howard has – is important.
The Liberal Right Wing have had two days of epic FAIL and don’t believe the commentariat drama queens when they tell you otherwise!
Just sayin…
Elise @ 75: Well said.
Yesterday was also a body blow to denialism in Australia. The denialist forces in the Liberal Party were stared down and defeated, and if Turnbull does nothing else as leader he will be remembered for that.
Contingency and chance are comfortable bedfellows.
Context appears to be the cuckoo in this particular nest.
Context can mean at least two things:
1. Context is the summation of what actors perceive to be the situation. This consciousness is constructed entirely historically in the minds of the actors. For example, both factions in yesterday’s contest understand their struggle in terms of the struggle between two broad tendencies in the Liberal Party. Both sides insist on the legitimacy of their reading of this context in opposition to the enemy reading.
2. Context is the existence of forces beyond the control and perhaps beyond the ken of the actors involved. Only historians using hindsight are capable of explaining the effects of these forces on contemporary behaviour.
I don’t think Hockey will ever stand for leader unless he starts to believe the flattery of those near him and in the media (‘Hockey serious contender etc.’).
I’ve spoken to Hockey face to gut and he strikes me as a man who knows his limitations, and he’s cagey enough to avoid becoming an Improvised Explosive Device remote controlled by Minchin.
Rudd would cut Hockey to pieces in Parliament and Hockey knows it. He’s far more glued to that kind of reality than, say, Downer who floated into Deputy Leader in a similar time of abject desperation for the Libs without even thinking about facing Keating in debate every single horrendous day of his life.
But then flattery is an insidious poison and Hockey wouldn’t be the first man to start beieving his own Press Releases.
Oh, Mark, I rarely disagree with you,because we share the same views and ideals to a great extent, though I’m possibly more critical of the ALP at times. I have to put my hand up for history as a useful tool for political analysis.
The three events in recent (in historical terms) times that provide some guide to analysis of the current Liberal crisis are the demise of the UAP for reasons I’ve outlined above – basically what happens to a political party when it passes its use-by date.
The second historical event that could be of use for current political analysis is the Great Labor Split of 1955/8. This provides examples of what happens to a major party when it is riven by insoluble internal ideological dissent.
The third is the collapse of the Australian Democrats,brought on by the internal factional fight over support for Howard’s GST.
Sure, one can only make generalisations from these events. The particular circumstances of each political crisis are unique to each situation, but, lessons could have been learned from each event. Indeed, they were, in the case of the collapse of the UAP. The lib/conservatives were never again weak on home defence, though they still had a propensity for overseas military adventurism.
The Libs problem with the present crisis is entirely due to ideological internal divisions, brought about by their abandonment of the Menzies model by Howard. It has all the harbingers of a great conservative/liberal split. Turnbull’s political footwork or lack of it, might be compared to Evatt’s in the lead up to the Labor Split. This has a long way to go yet, and I really don’t see the presence of the wise in the conservative side of the Liberal Party. They are in the grip of the same kind of folly that once nearly destroyed the ALP. What’s more, I’m not sure the Liberal Party has the inbuilt mechanisms to deal with it, the way the ALP had in the 1950s.
Only the months to come will tell if I’m right.
The
Anyone who thinks Turnbull is Menzies reborn should read Annabel Crabb’s recent quarterly essay on him, and the letter by Geoffrey Cousins (who has known Turnbull for decades) on said essay at the back of the most recent QE (the one by Noel Pearson).
Turnbull believes in one thing only, and that is his own manifest destiny. At times this mindset puts him on the right side of the argument (the ETS, Bill Henson), at other times not, but a political leader he aint.
Downer eventually realised the truth.
The narrative/story isn’t finished yet, because the ETS legislation still needs to pass the Senate. A bunch of Coalition Senators won’t vote with the Government, but the legislation will pass, there will be another day or two of stories, and then Turnbull will head into December/January and some clean air.
And then he’ll get thumped next year at the ballot box.
Helen @65 and Paul @62 – I think the warmenista variant of the original warmista has a certain ring to it, a defining moment on LP perhaps leading to a broader cachet across the internet, insofar as one is referring to conservative politicians who begrudgingly accept the general thrust of today’s science and see the need to apply some mitigating public policy.
I commend the term and all who sail in it….bon voyage good ship liberalis warmenista
At last. Objective proof that at least 38 sitting Liberal Federal members are barking mad. What we suspected all the time. Next, daylight saving is to be wound back to control AGW. But not just one hour. The Liberals are going to wind back the clocks to account for all of the hours of extra sunshine since the start of daylight saving in Australia. Except in Qld, of course, where they were sane enough under Joh to resist the work of the Devil in the first place.
“And then he’ll get thumped next year at the ballot box.”
And then the circus will start again. Malcolm has a reprieve, that’s all.
And in the meantime there were “at least 22 emails and eight phone calls or messages between Mr Grech and Mr Turnbull from November 2008 to late June 2009″ that he needs to explain.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/grechs-torrent-of-gushing-advice-to-turnbull-20091125-jrwi.html
A Godwin Grech gem:
Janet Albrechtsen as interpreted by Godwin Grech — a bizarre confederacy of dunces!
And let us not forget that Malcolm Turnbull willingly entered into a conspiracy with this strange, driven, twisted gnome.
Maybe if Kevin Andrews had reminded his colleagues of these matters, he might be wearing the victor’s laurels today.
But tragically, he didn’t.
From the SMH today
Gutless.
The emails from GG to Mr Albrechtson certainly make for interesting reading.
KISS. The right in opposition move to the center in rhetoric, win government, jettison the pilots and start drifting back, land among the dingbats and set up camp, lose government, chuck most of the dingbats and start again.
Rinse, lather, repeat.
- Patrick Cook (1972) on the contemporary leadership troubles in the Liberal Party.
There’s an awful lot of ruination in a major party in a two party system; this is most unlikely to be the end of the Liberals. And even if it was its not the end of toryism – too many voters are natural reactionaries to allow that.
Labor would have to explode spectacularly to lose the 2010 election from here, but an awful lot of things can happen by 2013 so they shouldn’t allow themselves complacency.
Yes, repeating now as farce: Godwin Grech qua key liberal strategist on ETS. I cant work out if that – or the Andrews leadership tilt – takes tghe cake this week.
Perhaps Rudd should RESIGN!
Predictions of the demise of the Liberals are premature. Kevin ‘Stealth’ Andrews has crept up on the party and the nation with the same sort of intent, cunning and skill that an Archbishop creeps up on a choirboy. He will run an impeccable moral campaign for leadership of the party and the nation. He will lead us to a Republic prior to installing a cloned replica of BA Santamaria as our first Head of State.
Breaking news. Malcolm Turnbull is to challenge Malcolm Turnbull at an emergency meeting this afternoon. Hopefully this vote will unite the party. When asked via wedja board on his feelings on the current state of the libs the medium chanelling the ghost of Menzies spelt out “hnnnrggggggg! Hide the decline!” Media commentators from the ABC and News Ltd have independantly come to the same conclusion that “This Barry shows a turning point. The honeymoon is over and everyone is reassessing Kevin Rudd Barry. The real story is that given the trend over a three day period this week in Sydney from Sunday to Tuesday, the globe is cooling.”
The stench of Grech aint out of Talcum’s upholstery by a long way. Check the depth of perfidy behind the OzCar farce. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/26/2753811.htm
It also suggest someone WAS providing preferential treatment: Grech, to liberal party supporters.
Kevin Andrews is the result of a remarkable astral union between Annie Besant and Francis de Groot. He has been secretly and well preserved over the years by routine applications of secret herbal remedies mixed with the precious bodily fluids of Menzies and, more recently, the dessicated remnants of what passes as fluids produced by JWH. He will make plain his plans as soon as he drives a stake throught the heart of that usurper Abbot.
His time has come.
Oh, yes!
This looks like conspiracy to commit fraud.
Janet! Janet!! I have a scoop for you. Hold the presses!
It takes two to make a conspiracy. There’s no evidence Mr Albrechtson took GG up on his offer.
Excellent news.
In that case Janet has an angle.
She can explain how, unlike Malcolm Turnbull, her beloved managed to escape the wily embrace of Godwin Grech, Super Mole.
Apparently, Mr Albrechtson told GG to shut down the inappropriate email correspondence forthwith.
In other words, the man has judgment, a quality that the leader of the opposition lacks.
Is it true that Godwin Grech also comments over at Catallaxy under the ‘nym “CL”?
I wish I could draw, Katz. “Godwin Grech, Super Mole” would make a wonderful comic strip, or animation, along the lines of “Rodger Ramjet”, only small and nearly blind.
CL = Compulsive Leaker ?
If Malcolm is doomed as Crikey and others seem to think then the Liberals are mad. They have no credible replacement. Hockey would have to take over (the Liberals Kim Beazley). Abbot’s as mad as a parrot. I reckon that Malcolm will pick up a point or two in the OPs out of this. That will make things a lot harder for the lunatic fringe. Anyway it was a secret ballot on the whether to have a spill. The loons will have voted yes and the others probably tossed a coin. I reckon the numbers would have been a bit more in Malcolm’s favour had it been a leadership ballot. He should insist on a show of hands.
Pretty deep cover for a Jew. Plus GG looks like he might have a sense of humour.
But the person posing as CL is very supportive of the AIPAC line. What more surprising method of propagating that line than adopting the persona of a Right Wing Catholic?
And it is easier to hide a sense of humour than to fake one. Thus yuk-a-minute GG becomes anal-obsessive CL when he logs on to Catallaxy.
Re parliamentarians absenting themselves from the chamber so they won’t have to follow the party line on an issue they’re opposed to in principle, the way Minchin and Abetz did on the CPRS vote.
It’s a time-honoured tradition in the Australian Parliament. Eddie Ward did it during the Chifley Government so he wouldn’t have to vote yes to Australia participating in the IMF, which he saw as part of the international financial conspiracy. (He was an old Langite.)
Nothing unusual in it, and the parties tend to see it as the preferred mode of protest – not as controversial or humiliating as actually crossing the floor.
Though I do agree- after all the trouble they caused Minchin and Abetz were gutless.
Paul 127, since one of the founders of the IMF, US Treasury official Harry Dexter White, was apparently a spy for the Soviet Union, Eddie Ward might have been right about the IMF being part of an international conspiracy, though not the kind he had in mind.
The SMH reports that Tony Abbott is considering a dramatic resignation from the front bench.
You have to hand it to Rudd. The mild mannered dweeb has turned out to be a weapon of mass destruction, as far as the Liberal Party goes.
Great. Alex Hawke as replacement!
“You have to hand it to Rudd. The mild mannered dweeb has turned out to be a weapon of mass destruction, as far as the Liberal Party goes.”
I made this prediction the very first time I saw him interviewed. This was back when I was just moving out of my maybe-one-day-Carmen-Lawrence-fingers-crossed extended adolescence and realising that capturing the centre is all either party has a hope of (or desire to be) doing.
I like to think it was my drunken yelling at him in Fitzroy Gardens that “[he] caan dooo eeet!”, while utterly failing to kick a footy in his direction that pushed a tilt at the big chair. Which I now kinda regret, if so.
But only kinda.
[/strocchiversal self-congratulation]
“Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull is facing a fresh bout of unrest over his leadership, with Tony Abbott understood to be about to resign from the front bench.
It is understood others may follow him.
The rebels are also pushing for another party room meeting to force Mr Turnbull to change his policy on Labor’s emissions trading scheme.”
Rudd should call a snap election. Labor will win 130 seats.
“Rudd should call a snap election. Labor will win 130 seats.”
Na, the pig needs more turning.
Yep, senior libs going to the backbench to plot. http://www.theage.com.au/national/senior-libs-on-verge-of-quitting-20091126-jtzh.html
This party will self-destruct in 30 seconds.
The pig is crackling now. Pass the apple sauce.
@98 – I may have put that a bit strongly, Paul. I don’t mean that history has no value in interpreting current politics. I do think, though, that it doesn’t have any predictive power. But I’m very sceptical, generally, of most things that claim to do so in this field. Sure, patterns are similar, but I still think there’s a lot of uniqueness to most political situations.
Great story FDB. I bet Rudd remembers the occasion well and it he thinks about it whenever he has a moment of self-doubt. ‘But I can’t let down that drunk with the beard…’
In other news…apparently Abbott has called a news conference. Queue thunderclaps.
Too close to Xmas to call an election. Better to let the Libs do themselves slowly. (I fear my prediction Abbott will be the next Lib. leader may come true. Hockey is too pro-CPRS for this bunch of lunatics.)
This looks like its terminal. Dare I say it, but the Libs are now too obviously a party of right wing extremists. And, though I would prefer the electorate was willing to accept a far left party, as a political realist I know the electorate always go for the centre.
The Greens may get some advantage out of this, though probably only in terms of BOP in the Senate. Basically, the Lib right wing ratbags seem close to proving only one thing: They can’t be trusted.
Heh.
It’s what every PM should stand for, Liam. Especially a Labor one.
Abbott has quit.
I hope it included an epic prattfall, FDB. That’d really stick in his memory as an inspirational moment.
Abbot resigns, says it’s a policy not a leadership issue, isn’t clear if Minchin is gone too but both visited Turnbull’s office and called for a delay.
This is a joke. Something is definately up.
Harrumph. I did make contact. Though one of his minders put me to shame with a lovely return stab pass.
And there was definitely a glimmer of something behind the “get-away-from-me-you-Dockers-supporting-FREAK!!! Don’t taint me with your loser germs!!!” expression. A certain crystallisation of a certain steely resolve.
Well, iron-rich sphere-y resolve, at least. My chemistry ain’t what it used to be.
(hugs self with excitement)
Unfortunately I missed most of yesterday’s excitement on the 7:30 Report, as I had a prior engagement, but I’m really looking forward to it tonight.
No, DI(nr). I always retain a minimum of 15% of my dignity, and falling on my arse in the rhododendrons would have broken the bank at that point.
Mark @ 135,
No worries mate. The business of history is the interpretation of events of the past on surviving evidence. I don’t believe in The Truth. There’s either too little or too much evidence for an historian to discover it. As for its relevance in prediction – ain’t history’s business. We’re into understanding humanity by a study of the past. Even with military history, where military strategy is assessed by accepted doctrine, eg to not concentrate forces leads to defeat in detail, (eg Greene’s southern campaign in the war of American independence) the doctrine is not necessarily right. ( Ultimately Greene didn’t win many battles, but he laid the groundwork for Cornwallis’s defeat at Yorktown). And if there is one lesson to be learnt from military history, battle plans almost never work out the way commanders envisage them.
All the historian can do, and this applies to politics as well, is discover general trends, which can be applied to the present. The future in unknowable, especially in the day to day antheap of politics. Hell, with all the stress he’s going through (look at his face) Turnbull could die of a heart attack tomorrow. Or he might not.
Who for example would have predicted Abbott’s apparent intention (I haven’t seen the latest news) to resign from the front bench? He seemed to be going the other way.
Update: New thread on Abbott’s resignation.