Alan Jones: Malcolm Turnbull’s book a work of fiction
The public aren’t stupid, they can see a fake a mile off. And when it comes to political fakes, Malcolm Turnbull is captain, for life, of the team writes Alan Jones.
Opinion
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It’s an oft-repeated axiom that politicians are too prone to ignore: the public are not stupid.
They can see a fake a mile off.
When it comes to political fakes, Malcolm Turnbull is captain, for life, of the team.
In February 2017, the former federal MP Ross Cameron — a splendid and learned orator in the mould of his father, Jim Cameron, who became Speaker of the NSW parliament — was reported to have addressed a fundraiser.
At the function, he was alleged to have spoken disparagingly about the Liberal Party, and, among other things, referred to the Liberal Party as being “corrupt”.
He was suspended by the Liberal Party’s State Executive for four and a half years.
Why not Mr Turnbull?
And what an irony.
Malcolm Turnbull, in Opposition, and in government was the ultimate leaker. Now his book has been leaked.
Is that called karma?
And then Turnbull’s lawyers resort to that which Mr Turnbull knows best — whack out a legal letter to a government staffer who is allegedly “responsible for the unauthorised distribution of my client’s book”.
Is this the same Turnbull who took Margaret Thatcher’s government to court so that a book, threatening British national security, could be published against the British national interest?
A few years ago there was a growing trend in universities around the world of students attempting to tear down statues, an attempt to deny the happenings of the past and to rewrite history.
Malcolm Turnbull’s work of fiction does just that.
It’s the stuff that only a fake Liberal could try to articulate.
Glenn Milne reported in The Sunday Telegraph on the August 23, 2009, that: “Malcolm Turnbull wanted to become Kim Beazley’s shadow finance minister during the second term of the Howard government.”
The Sunday Telegraph confirmed that: “Mr Turnbull approached at least six senior ALP figures, including former prime minister Bob Hawke, actively seeking their endorsement to join the ALP at the time of the republic referendum.”
And then listen to this for both vanity and ego!
The story goes that Turnbull told the senior ALP staffer, David Britton: “Don’t you think Kim Beazley would like someone like me as his finance spokesman.”
The then NSW health minister John Della Bosca was also approached by Mr Turnbull about the possibility of securing an ALP NSW senate seat.
And what of this brilliant political messiah who was removed from the Liberal Party because his party was worried he was going to win the 2019 election!
A political party changing leaders because they feared their leader would win!
This belongs in the realm of Hans Christian Andersen.
But talking about winning, Mr Turnbull’s political amnesia no doubt extends to the 2018 Super Saturday by-elections.
The South Australian seat of Mayo was a dynastic Liberal seat, held by the Liberal Party for nearly 30 years.
Under Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership, the Liberal Party in Mayo received a primary vote of 36 per cent.
Then there was the seat of Longman in Queensland.
Mr Turnbull declared that this was a referendum on the leadership of himself or Shorten.
The media pundits had Shorten on the verge of being replaced as leader.
Remember, the punter can sniff a fake from a mile off.
The Liberals received a primary vote of 27 per cent — both seats with a primary vote down 18 per cent on what Tony Abbott achieved in 2013.
And what Mr Turnbull can never stomach is that Tony Abbott won, in two elections, 25 seats from the Labor Party.
Unprecedented in Australian political history.
ABBOTT’S BOLD PREDICTION
Abbott intellectually grapples with ideas and concepts in a way that Turnbull never could.
And that is why the central conflict between Turnbull and Abbott was always based on Turnbull’s jealousy of what Abbott had achieved in electoral success and what Turnbull would never achieve (after all, he lost 14 seats in his only shot at an election), as well as Abbott’s ability to articulate a clear and consistent message.
No person has ever heard Malcolm Turnbull articulate a cogent reason for being in the Liberal Party, let alone compose a philosophical dissertation about what the Liberal Party represents.
Which brings us to the source of the contemporary problem — a World Health Organisation run by an Ethiopian Marxist and stooge for the Chinese Communist Party, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Who, on January 10 when doctors had revealed the presence of this virus in at least early December, said: “WHO does not recommend any specific health measures for travellers to and from Wuhan in China.
“It is generally considered that entry screening offers little benefit while requiring considerable resources. WHO advises against the application of any travel or trade restrictions on China based on the information currently available.”
Of course, the information was available.
Then, on January 14, the World Health Organisation on Twitter said: “Preliminary investigations … conducted by the Chinese authorities (not the seven doctors who spilt the beans, one of whom is dead and the six others have gone missing) found no clear evidence of human to human transmission of the novel coronavirus identified in Wuhan, China.”
Given that the World Health Organisation must be a repository of immense international trust in dealing with health and mortality, this bloke, Tedros Adanhom, must be replaced.
We need someone who is strong, intelligent, has integrity and experience in both health administration and politics, at a high level.
Enter Tony Abbott.
He was our federal health minister and made several telling speeches about the need to prepare for a pandemic.
Those speeches are a matter of public record.
In 2005, he argued at a pandemic flu conference in Ottawa: “Given the immense potential damage of a pandemic, it would be a dereliction of duty for a government to neglect prudent precautions just because they might not always work. It would be like abolishing the army because it might not always win.”
NEW WHO LEADER NEEDED
He outlined in that speech, clearly, what should happen once a pandemic is declared.
Then he said: “In any pandemic there are two questions people would ask: How do I avoid becoming sick and what do I do if I become sick? The Australian government has already established a national influenza website and hotline. This could swiftly expand to handle hundreds of thousands of calls a day by mobilising other call centres.”
He argued, rather prophetically: “While any new pandemic could disrupt lives and damage economies in ways people still find hard to imagine, even under a biological doomsday scenario, the vast majority would live through it to resume normal life. People need to be aware of the potential threat but not to become too apocalyptic in their thinking about it.
“If it happens, a serious pandemic outbreak will test Australians’ reserves of character and stoicism in ways unknown for half a century. Keeping troubles in perspective, accepting risk, acknowledging that much won’t work out as planned and facing the prospect of untimely death have not normally been required of modern Australians. Under such circumstances, to maintain the optimism and generosity of spirit that characterises Australians at their best would be a formidable challenge.”
He ended his speech by saying: “Perhaps the world will be spared this cup of suffering. Perhaps the contemplation of epic disasters might help Australians deal better with everyday problems. Almost certainly, preparing thoroughly for disasters which don’t eventuate will help prepare for those which do.”
That’s an analysis totally beyond the limited skill set available to Malcolm Turnbull. Why wouldn’t Australia put forward Tony Abbott as a nomination to head the World Health Organisation?
We are not beholden, as Ethiopia has been, in the case of Tedros.
More than ever, we need a fighter who is a clear thinker and a clear speaker.
Why can’t Abbott be that man?
What’s wrong with giving Malcolm a bit more ammunition with which to hate?
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