Tory Shepherd: So much for Prime Minister Trumble...
MALCOLM Turnbull has unleashed a tirade on Bill Shorten, accusing him of “blowing hard”. It’s about time he found his fury, writes Tory Shepherd.
“BLOWING hard in the House... sucking hard in the living rooms of Melbourne...”
Nah, it’s not Sexpo. It’s Parliament.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull this afternoon unleashed a furious tirade on Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. About time he found his righteous anger. He called Mr Shorten a sycophant, a parasite. And more.
Mr Turnbull even had his backbench straightening their spines, his frontbench leaning in.
An insider tells RendezView it was off-the-cuff, from the heart.
The speech came after Question Time, just when journos are thinking deadlines and/or drinking. Mr Turnbull launched into what could become one of the great speeches of our time.
Its foundation is a little dubious — Mr Point Piper Millionaire Turnbull was painting Mr Shorten as the cosy buddy to the rich; taking the piss out of his friendship with the ludicrously rich (now dead) Richard Pratt.
The “social climbing sycophant... likes harbourside mansions, he is yearning for one,” Mr Turnbull thundered.
Labor didn’t know where to look.
“Just like he loved knocking back Dick Pratt’s Cristal and looked forward to living at the expense of the taxpayer, this man is a parasite,” the PM went on.
The rant, controlled and pointed, wound through Labor’s energy policies and union relationships, to company tax, and job creation.
He accused Mr Shorten of pretending to be friend to the worker on one hand while sucking up to billionaires on corporate jets on the other.
“This sycophant, blowing hard in the House of Representatives, sucking hard in the living rooms of Melbourne, what a hypocrite,” he said.
It was a hairdryer speech. You know, the fury-fuelled venting designed to blow someone’s hair back. Some immediately compared the impact to former Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s famous misogyny speech.
It might change the dynamic, which has not been working in the Government’s favour. It will certainly boost the Coalition’s morale after a week where the Tories went badly in the polls and the Cory just... went.
The Australian Prime Minister may well have been blowing hard, but the result certainly didn’t suck for his party.
Tory Shepherd is Political Editor of The Advertiser
Twitter @ToryShepherd