TURNBULL'S FINAL PATHETIC POWER PLAY
Malcolm Turnbull was never the smartest guy in the room. And he’s even less smart now he’s out of it.
Malcolm Turnbull was never the smartest guy in the room. And he’s even less smart now he’s out of it.
On Sunday, former Prime Minister Turnbull launched a destructive strategy by urging that the conservative member for Hughes, Craig Kelly, face a pre-selection battle he would almost certainly lose.
Turnbull claimed on social media that re-endorsing Kelly would “deny Liberal Party members in Hughes the opportunity to have their say.”
This was disingenuous, to say the least. Turnbull is well aware that in 2016 Kelly won 52 per cent of Hughes’s first preference votes – a massive 20 percentage point advantage over his Labor rival.
Clearly, democracy would not be well served by removing this popular local member. The move against Kelly seemed more ideological than democratic.
Turnbull then revealed further of his wily plan: "I subsequently spoke with several State Executive members to express my strong view that the party's democratic processes should operate in the normal way especially after such a long debate in the NSW Liberal Party about the importance of grass roots membership involvement."
Interestingly, as the Daily Telegraph reveals, Turnbull signed a letter in May praising Kelly as “one of the government’s most committed contributors on the floor of the parliament”, and declaring he “looked forward to” the backbencher being “re-elected as part of our strong coalition team”.
So much for loyalty.
As it happens, Turnbull’s calls to the Liberal Party’s State Executive members backfired spectacularly. One call was to NSW MP Matt Kean, a member of Turnbull’s own moderate faction. The ex-PM yesterday accused Kean of revealing Turnbull’s hostile attitude towards Scott Morrison.
“Why he chose to do that,” Turnbull told the ABC, “is completely beyond me.”
Kean’s motivation was reportedly driven by the fact that Turnbull had not only knifed conservative Liberals, but that he’d also undermined moderate Dave Sharma’s Wentworth campaign. According to reports, Kean was “furious with what Malcolm did to Dave Sharma”.
With so many knives flying around, Turnbull was bound to one day cop one himself. Perhaps he simply forgot how many people he had crossed.
(This morning’s earliest Daily Telegraph editorial, soon replaced by another editorial following subsequent events.)
(And the less said about Alex Turnbull the better.)