Larvatus Prodeo

It’s been a shocker of a week for Malcolm Turnbull. We’ve had the Julie Bishop shenanigans, the missing deficit as a yardstick line, second guessing the Reserve Bank to argue that interest rates rises tanked the economy (which is an arguable point, but politically worthless when interest rates have been rapidly falling), a Nationals revolt, losing Fiona Nash from the frontbench, the embarrassment of Christopher Pyne’s arguments being repudiated by the private schools sector and a major win for Julia Gillard, and the revival of Howardism on mandatory detention and border protection – which created its own ripples and waves of internal dissent.

And it goes on.

Stoushing on the government’s infrastructure bill revolved around Coalition claims that it would enable a slush fund for porkbarrelling. A last minute about face by Shadow Cabinet recognised the reality that opposing it, with the House rejecting Senate amendments, might be a bad look – as such opposition could easily be painted as frustrating the desire to stimulate the economy. But the Nationals had drawn their own line in the sand – basically, because they wanted to ensure that the principle of porkbarrelling for rural and regional electorates endured! The result? Malcolm Turnbull was exposed as unable to enforce any sort of discipline on his own party:

There were another two hours of debate before the bill was brought to a vote. And when it was, only Senators Johnston, Ronaldson, Brandis, Coonan, Mason and Troeth from the Liberals voted for the unamended bill, although Mason missed the division on the sale of Telstra funds. Senators Eggleston and Ferguson voted with the Nationals in favour of the amendments. This was the second time in a week that Eggleston, from Western Australia, has stood apart from his colleagues, having joined Petro Georgiou earlier this week in backing changes to the mandatory detention of asylum seekers.

Johnston, Ronaldson, Brandis and Coonan are all shadow Cabinet members and thus are bound by Cabinet solidarity. Mason is a Parliamentary Secretary. According to the ABC, there was confusion within the Coalition over who was required to vote and who was allowed to abstain, and reports of Coalition senators trying to bolt the chamber before the doors were locked for the vote.

The mass abstention was a poor look for Turnbull, especially with his Senate leader being amongst their number.

.
Continue reading ‘The opposition unravels’