Libs leadership brawl

For those who are heartily sick of politics, the good news is that there are no elections scheduled for 2008, State, Territory or Federal.Political animals however, will be able to rejoice in the new games just beginning within both the Labor and Coalition parties.

Outgoing Treasurer Peter Costello’s announcement that he will seek a “post-political career in the commercial world” kills any hope for the orderly succession that Prime Minister John Howard talked of in his concession speech on Saturday night. Costello had confided to friends and close colleagues earlier this year that he would definitely consider leaving politics if the Coalition lost the election. The only uncertainty was whether he would leave if the Labor Party won by an extremely slim margin. The size of the margin indicates there is little prospect of the Coalition regaining office after one term and killed any doubts that Costello may have harboured on Saturday night although he did not feel he could dampen the spirits of the volunteers in his electorate of Higgins by making the announcement of his imminent departure at the victory party celebrating his return. Costello served as Treasurer for nearly 12 years and was in Opposition for six years before the Coalition won office. He is now 50 and wants to assure the security of his family in every respect. He would be acutely aware that his commercial value as an ex-Treasurer to the sort of financial organisation which might hire him diminishes with every second that passes since the election was lost. He knows it is going to be difficult for the Liberal Party to move on but he feels that he has made a major contribution in government and done the hard yards in Opposition. As every experienced politician knows, being in government is a positive experience but Opposition requires a negative frame of mind. Costello, and other Coalition MPs who are leaving politics, take heart from the sound financial legacy they have left to Labor. In his home state of Victoria, voters remember the economic wasteland left by by Labor Premiers John Cain and Joan Kirner in the 1980s and early 1990s. The pair rightly earned the “guilty party” label they were tagged with. On the national level, former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating has never escaped being linked with the “recession we had to have”. Costello feels that Australia is now in such strong financial shape that any slippage will be seen as a result of the incompetence of the incoming Labor government. With Costello out of the leadership equation, three candidates are instantly identifiable: former environment minister Malcolm Turnbull, former health minister Tony Abbott and former Defence minister Brendan Nelson. Turnbull has been buoyed by scale of his victory in Wentworth though his margin had been artificially depressed during the last election by the rival candidacy of his predecessor Peter King, and he was somewhat blessed with an extremely poor Labor candidate in George Newhouse, said to be a selection of the former NSW party secretary Eric Roozendaal, and a gaggle of nonentities. The highly-publicised anti-pulp mill campaign mounted by millionaire businessman Geoff Cousins had no appreciable effect at all. Turnbull will point to his success as proof of his ability to add politics to the list of his other career achievements which now include journalism, the law and merchant banking. Abbott will put before his colleagues his nearly 12 years experience in government and his strong moral character, which will also be seen by some as a distraction and detraction. Nelson will also use his ministerial experience in the health and education portfolios as evidence of his abilities. Each of the candidates were canvassing colleagues yesterday. The position of deputy leader is also being discussed and the consensus is that former foreign minister Alexander Downer will leave his South Australian seat of Mayo should he find an appealing position outside politics. Western Australian Julie Bishop, the former education minister, has probably received flowers from Turnbull, Abbott and Nelson as they woo her interest. (ends)