Opinion: Choice of PM hangs by a thread

BILL Shorten looks rumpled, wearing a suit purchased before he started his 8km-a-day runs. But at least there is little in his image that appears cultivated.

NICK Minchin said it more than two decades ago after the end of a night at Malcolm Turnbull’s $54 million harbour view mansion.

In his biography of Turnbull, Sydney financial journalist Paddy Manning quoted Minchin, then leader of the Senate in John Howard’s government, as saying that Turnbull would never become prime minister while he lived in that mansion.

The regular sight now though is of Turnbull walking through the imposing gates to catch his favourite 398 bus, hi-tech paraphernalia in his hands and hanging out of his ears.

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When, always smiling, he is taking selfies with commuters, he looks the very picture of being happier than a pig in the proverbial.

He’s the same on the trains – and how he does love riding the Puffing Billy through the Dandenongs, or introducing himself as the conductor on the commuter electric train to Geelong.

The image that is projected is along the lines of “has there ever been a better time to be a prime minister” – a man able to pull any lever he can get his hands on and make things work.

But does this all mean anything to the hard-working, dirt-under-nails guys (and we use that term reservedly) who’ve spent all their capital to invest in the mining boom in the Bowen Basin, buying shiny new equipment that might now be sitting idle?

Does it go down well in the thousands of knockabout sheds, factories and warehouses where so many Australians sweat out their working lives? It is actually not a great look.

There was a telling moment this week when Turnbull squared off against Leigh Sales on the ABC’s 7.30 and he was quizzed about a string of fairly poor opinion polls.

A clearly exasperated Turnbull sought to turn the tables on his interviewer, asking “Well, why don’t you ask me a question about it?”

Malcolm Turnbull’s Point Piper waterfront home.

She did and Turnbull promptly responded that “I am not going to be drawn into that kind of introspection”.

Sales persevered, asking why, if the Prime Minister was so dismissive about polls, he was spending money on a national plebiscite on gay marriage? Good point.

If, Sales asked, “you are re-elected and the plebiscite cannot get through the Senate because of the multiplicity of crossbenchers there, will you then put the issue to a conscience vote on the floor of the Parliament?”

“I’m not – I have no doubt the plebiscite will be passed through the Senate.”

Sales again: “Really? Why?”

“Well absolutely,” responds Turnbull. “If you look – there is overwhelming support in the community for the plebiscite. People actually quite like the idea of having their own say in it.”

So Turnbull doesn’t care about the polls, but has complete faith in a poll which will decide the fate of marriage equality.

Turnbull, with his nicely cut suit, doesn’t look the goods.

Shorten, on the other hand, looks rumpled, wearing a suit that was purchased before he started his 8km-a-day runs. There is little in the image that appears cultivated.

You might dismiss such observations as superficial judgments, but these are often the impressions that linger in voters minds, polls or no polls.

Dennis Atkins is The Courier-Mail’s national affairs editor