The Turnbull Government now a vortex of shambles

CHAOS is swirling around him, and still, even with a by-election now looming, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull cannot grab the reigns and take control, Peta Credlin writes.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he was disappointed at the High Court’s decision. (Pic: Kym Smith.) Majority in danger after Joyce disqualified

TO say it’s been a lousy week for the Turnbull government would be an understatement.

As it stands Australia’s got no Deputy Prime Minister (instead an acting parliamentary leader, whatever that means); an as-yet-undetermined acting Prime Minister; no real Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources; and a Prime Minister who was scheduled to be out of the country for most of the next month; or, alternatively, Australia won’t be fully represented at important international gatherings like APEC.

What a shambles.

It’s telling that Julie Bishop wasn’t immediately designated acting PM.

Canberra gossip is that Turnbull is concerned about her loyalty and rumours that she’s eyeing off his job; yet he now needs her more than she needs him.

It’s even more telling that Barnaby had anticipated his disqualification but the Prime Minister had not.

So much for Malcolm Turnbull’s declaration, doing his best QC impersonation, that the High Court “will find” that Barnaby Joyce was entitled to sit in the Parliament, despite inheriting New Zealand citizenship from his father.

I’m told George Brandis isn’t to be blamed for overstating the legal case on section 44, that it was the PM himself who decided a bullish attack was the best defence.

Yet another example of poor judgment by a leader now caught in a vortex where nothing goes right.

Senator Michaelia Cash was also under fire this week. (Pic: Kym Smith.)

We shouldn’t be too hard on Barnaby over this. How was he to know that his father was legally a Kiwi, given that he’d left New Zealand as a teenager and had never sought a New Zealand passport? Still, ignorance is no excuse and better checks should have been made. Tony Abbott had similar questions about his background and it was the first thing I chased down; it’s prudence 101.

Interestingly, the lawyer who kicked off this whole issue has ­revealed that Abbott and Julia ­Gillard were his original targets. He might not have got their scalps but he got five others as well as seriously wounding the government’s ­credibility. I doubt it will end here and others may fall.

The New England by-election is now probably the least of the government’s worries. After cutting and running in 2013, Tony Windsor has declined to run this time (thank God for small mercies) but will no doubt back another pro-Labor pseudo-independent.

One Nation will also run and probably poll strongly, despite also losing a senator in Friday’s massacre.

As usual in by-elections, there’ll be a host of attention-seekers and single issue fanatics to muddy the waters. But, when it is all said and done, Barnaby has been a good local member, as well as being born and bred in an area where that matters.

It’s got all the hallmarks already of a dirty campaign but Australian voters nearly always judge people on how they’ve done their job, as they should.

In all probability, a Liberal will now take the senate seat of Nationals Deputy Leader Fiona Nash on a vote countback; unless the Nats successfully pressure Turnbull, in turn, to pressure the NSW Libs to have their candidate resign in a Nat’s favour. With the Nats two down in the parliament, at least until Barnaby’s return, the ministerial ratios could change and ambitious Libs could demand a reshuffle.

Former Deputy Barnaby Joyce will now seek re-election. (Pic: Lyndon Mechielsen/The Australian.)

This is a sad outcome for the Nationals who, let’s remember, ran the better campaign in the 2016 election and, in effect, saved the Turnbull government from defeat.

These are all fraught handling issues for the PM. At least it’s likely to save Michaelia Cash, by swamping her staffer’s leak of a police raid to the media. Her saving grace is that the leak fiasco was at the end of a sitting fortnight and not the start. I find it all a little implausible, I have to say.

Having seen how an office tends to watch Senate Estimates like a spectator sport when their boss is under fire, I don’t understand why no-one thought to update her at any point during the day that she was at risk of misleading the Senate.

It’s either gross office incompetence or ministerial knowledge, or both. And it’s a pity, because Senator Cash is one of the government’s few star performers.

Meanwhile, at least until the December by-election and likely pre-Christmas ministerial reshuffle, the government will be distracted, and the country will continue to drift. It’s enormously reminiscent of Rudd and Gillard in their latter days, when the government couldn’t take a trick despite its best efforts.

Watching this unfold from New York I’ve got to say, surely we’re better than this?

Originally published as The Turnbull Government now a vortex of shambles