Malcolm Turnbull’s a pampered princeling, so can he control his own urges?

THE last time Malcolm Turnbull led the Liberal Party, he was brought down by his ­obsession with climate change.

If Turnbull learnt anything from that dumping, he should start showing it, or it may occur again. As it stands now, he and ­Environment Minister Greg Hunt are going to stick to the carbon emission reduction targets agreed to under Prime Minister Turnbull’s predecessor Tony Abbott, a political leader who amassed a raft of genuine, not theoretical, achievements on his watch. The political reality is that the hopey-wishey science-­deniers in the man-made ­global warming lobby would not have the numbers in the Coalition, and the combined forces of the Abbott loyalists and the ­National Party MPs would form a ­majority to ­defeat any attempt to radically change ­climate policy. To underscore that point it is worth remembering that the first of the 10 points in the agreement Turnbull signed with the Nationals to gain the support of the Coalition partner for his government insisted on the maintenance of “the existing policies in relation to climate change, carbon taxes and emissions reduction targets”. The target is for a 26 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide based on 2005 levels and it is likely that any change or any commitment to increase those ­reduction levels will run into serious resistance from MPs who believe in the science that even the Bureau of Meteorology has acknowledged show no change in temperatures in 18 years despite significant increases in the volumes of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Those claiming that carbon dioxide is the driver of climate change look as stupid as Tim Flannery’s predictions that the dams should have dried up years ago. While Turnbull is still enjoying a honeymoon period denied Abbott, the celebratory ululations from the kumbaya crowd at the ABC and Fairfax may die when the Green Left understands the actuality. The Point Piper princeling has already shown through his ill-considered utterances that he is not quite the communications genius that his role as co-host of the ABC’s Q&A may have led him to believe. It was thoughtless in the ­extreme, unless he was blinded by his slavish pandering to the Abbott haters ,to leave open in one of his first staged media appearances the suggestion that Australia’s border-­pro-tection policies might be up for downgrading. Expressing concern about those who paid illegal people-smugglers to travel to Australia and now find themselves languishing in detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island, and hinting that the government might consider policy changes, was stupid on three counts. It gave the perception that Turnbull spoke without considering the heightened effects of remarks made by a prime minister; it was undoubtedly catnip to the global people- smuggling fraternity looking to make up for lost profits in this region, and it reinforced the view that excluding the Immigration and Border Protection Minister from the Nat-ional Security Council was dumb. Indeed, Turnbull’s mid-week remarks needed to be swatted down immediately and, on recognising their damaging effect, he rolled out a ­rebuttal that would have dismayed his Leftist supporters. “We cannot take a backward step on this issue,” he said on Wednesday night. “People who come via the people-smuggling route will never ­settle in Australia: that is the one message that has to be ­absolutely crystal clear. “They will never settle in Australia, it is only by being ­utterly unequivocal on this matter that we have been able to stop the boats, and that has saved hundreds of lives. Yes, we are a generous country; yes, we are a compassionate country; but we will not tolerate people-smuggling.” It was clearly not judged to be enough by the government’s new managers, who ­include Tony Nutt, Tony O’Leary, Jim Bonner and Darcy Tronson, the trusted old hands from the Howard government era brought in by the Turnbull team to provide much-needed institutional ­experience. As late as Friday, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton was still reaffirming that the Operation Sovereign Borders policy had not changed or ­softened against the backdrop of our humanitarian response to the Syrian crisis or “the change in Prime Minister”. “People-smugglers will ­always grasp on to any (political) change in an attempt to exploit vulnerable people, but as the Prime Minister stated this week, we will not tolerate people-­smuggling and our policy, while tough, must continue,” Mr Dutton said. He could have said that the Prime Minister’s hard-line statement was a correction of his earlier mushy remarks. “We remain as committed as ever to implementing tough policies that stop vulnerable people being exploited by criminals, prevent further loss of life at sea, and ultimately keep people-smugglers out of business,” Dutton said, not deviating from the line that was used by his border-protection predecessor Scott Morrison under the Abbott government. “It remains Australia’s policy to safely turn back boats or send people to another country for processing and resettlement, regardless of where they are from.” If Turnbull is politically savvy, and not just intellectually gifted, he would understand that he’s lost out twice to conservative realpolitik in his first week in office and he would start paying more attention to the base and less to the Twitterverse if he wants to unite his party.