Budget to determine PM Turnbull’s future

IN THREE short weeks, the Turnbull government will face its first Budget — which will ­determine its fate.

IN THREE short weeks, the Turnbull government will face its first Budget — which will ­determine its fate. Behind for the first time in Newspolls, the Budget will ­define its election strategy and its future. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was embraced by the Green-Left’s Twitterati when he toppled Tony Abbott in a ­reprise of Labor’s leadership struggles. But whereas Julia Gillard claimed that Kevin Rudd had led a government which “lost its way”, Turnbull’s excuse was that Abbott had lost the polls. But, having invoked the polls, he now doesn’t want to talk about them. Instead, some of his supporters have continued to sneer at Liberal and Coalition members who still question whether Turnbull has the character and judgment to turn Australia’s fortunes. None of them would contemplate Opposition leader Bill Shorten as an alternate but the denigration and denunciation from the Turnbull camp, and the labelling as del-Cons, as in delusional conservatives, is petty, demeaning and destructive. There is absolutely nothing delusional at all about conservatives who actually stand by traditionally conservative beliefs. The Liberal Party is, fam-ously, in John Howard’s words, a broad church and encouraging of debate and argument. It is comprised of small-l Liberals and conservatives. To shut down dissent and try to shut out conservatives as is happening in the NSW division of the party — and is reflected in the derogatory del-Con tagging — is akin to the smearing of those who question the ­global warmist religion as ­deniers, with all the baggage that slur carries. It is an unnecessary sideshow at a time when Turnbull’s own approach to floating policy balloons has put Labor back in the contest. Bluntly, Turnbull looked ­incompetent after the state premiers nearly unanimously ­rejected his attempt to give the states the responsibility for raising a portion of income taxes — not that it was intrinsically a bad policy. It’s just that a major shift of that nature should have been launched with gravity, and the serious background music it ­deserved, before being debated. It should not have been ­allowed to be portrayed as a tactic, as a political ploy. The public is offended, ­rightly, by being played for suckers, even more so when many can understand that the nation faces problems that need ­redress and that such a policy had merit in its own right. While Turnbull flaunts his regard for mass transit and uses his social media skills to ensure his followers are aware that he is riding a bus or a train, anyone who observes other mass transport users would be aware that they are all as welded to their tiny screens as he is and they are not communicating with each other. Merely riding with the masses does in no way ­ensure communication with the wider public. There is plenty of scope for the government to engage in a true competition of ideas with the Labor Party, but in recent days it has all but deserted the field. Turnbull needs to focus in the remaining days before the Budget on issues that are core to Labor, particularly its ­embrace of the trade union movement. Both the CFMEU and the TWU have used safety as a Trojan horse in their campaigns to unionise swaths of the workforce. The CFMEU even monstrously claimed that Turnbull was happy for workers to die, before removing the grossly ­offensive tweet. Gillard’s gifts to the union movement, such as the ­destruction of the building and construction watchdog and the installation of the union-based Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, are costing the ­nation millions. Workers, unionised or not, aren’t dumb. They followed the damning evidence against the AWU under Shorten during the Heydon Royal Commission and they were disgusted that he would approve agreements that cut benefits to the lower paid while employers were entering deals with the union bosses. Turnbull doesn’t even have an industrial relations minister. He’s still thinking of the big ­issues in Wentworth such as Mardi Gras attendance and homosexual marriage. He needs to sharpen his sword and take the attack to Labor. Niki Savva’s bestselling book The Road To Ruin: How Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin Destroyed Their Own Government had Turnbull supporters in paroxysms of glee, but did they read it right to the end? In the final sentences Savva deviated from some of her more histrionic reporting and mused that “those who questioned his (Turnbull’s) judgment might also be proved wrong, particularly if he listens to the wise heads around him in his office, in his ministry, and in the wider party, including (John) Howard. “We shall see. Turnbull not only had to learn how to be prime minister, but he also had to learn how to be the leader of that hybrid beast called the Liberal Party. He has to succeed in both roles if he is to last longer than his three predecessors. “Those who know him best, those who deal with him daily, swear that he has changed, swear it is true that he not only listens, but that he encourages people to tell him where he has erred and how he can do better, that he seldom if ever raises his voice, and only then if it is ­warranted. “He knows all the things that went wrong with his own leadership the first time around. He watched while Abbott and Credlin travelled down their road to ruin, even as they had watched Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard travel down theirs. “It is all, now, entirely in Turnbull’s hands. He does not have to follow the same road.” Unless something changes dramatically in the next few weeks, it would seem Turnbull learnt nothing.