Liberal leadership fracas will damage party’s brand going into an election
NO ONE expected Malcolm Turnbull would make a graceful exit, but his performance in delaying the inevitable will leave the Liberals weaker and more divided than ever.
Opinion
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MALCOLM Turnbull’s colleagues always feared that he would take the ship down with him in an explosive fashion when his time as leader finally came to an end.
Despite the risk, the decision to move on Malcolm Turnbull ultimately came down to a single factor: Cabinet ministers and backbenchers, MPs in marginal and safe seats across the country, did not believe he could lead the Coalition to victory at the next election.
Yet the turmoil and destruction that the Liberal Party has engaged in while tearing down yet another prime minister could utterly override any benefits the party believes it will gain from a new leader in Dutton, Bishop or Morrison.
This was a concern even of senior conservatives who were not convinced overthrowing Turnbull was the right thing to do, even as they despised him and everything he stood for.
The unresolved dilemma remains over the transaction costs of changing a prime minister set against the benefits of overthrowing an electorally problematic Turnbull.
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And that issue hasn’t been resolved. But the speedy momentum of the week overtook serious and careful deliberations about this.
The risk of this change is that the very move they hoped would improve their electoral success has, in fact, sealed the country’s fate for a Shorten government.
Not only that, no matter who ultimately wins this struggle, the fundamental divisions within the party remain unresolved.
And then there is the issue that not one politician moving against the Prime Minister has clearly articulated to voters why they are dumping him.
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Not Mathias Cormann, not Peter Dutton, not Mitch Fifield. Not a single reason has been publicly given for knifing a prime minister.
The Liberal Party is now left in a situation where a new leader will be scrambling to form government while strapping on their boots to hit the road for an election campaign.
In the face of the turmoil and frenzy, Bill Shorten suddenly appears more prime ministerial than he has ever managed to before.
And he gave one of his most brutal and effective performances in Question Time after Tuesday’s leadership spill.
Labor is refining its policies, lines of attack, candidates and fundraising dollars while the Liberal Party is starting from scratch.
Meanwhile, it is clear that events have spiralled rapidly out of any of the plotters’ control — mostly as a result of Turnbull.
It was always a possibility that Turnbull’s colleagues would inflict the same fate on him as he did on Tony Abbott.
Turnbull, the ruthless former merchant banker, venture capitalist, barrister and journalist, was never going to take a leadership coup lying down.
There would be no tearful or emotional resignation press conferences, like there were with Rudd, Gillard and Abbott. He refused to answer questions about whether he felt betrayed by his colleagues, choosing only to angrily and righteously hit out at media commentators he blames for being instrumental in his downfall.
Aside from this anger, Turnbull’s approach to the leadership coup has been ruthless and strategic.
He has tried to tear down his key opponent, Peter Dutton, by seeking eleventh hour Solicitor-General’s advice — which he hopes will show he is ineligible to be in the Parliament — to argue that he cannot be a candidate in a leadership spill. Instead, he should be sent off to the High Court.
He has delayed the party room meeting until this advice has come back.
Publicly, he blamed Dutton for asking for Parliament to be adjourned. But Dutton says he only asked for it to be adjourned in the morning so that a party room meeting could be held and he would have time to visit the Governor-General before fronting Question Time as a freshly minted prime minister.
Turnbull is also still demanding the 43 signatures on a petition before he calls a party room meeting — even though three of his most senior Cabinet ministers, Mathias Cormann, Mitch Fifield and Michaelia Cash, have added their names, publicly, to the four Cabinet ministers who already abandoned him in Tuesday’s spill. Plus Cormann — a senior and respected figure in the government — made it clear that five Cabinet ministers had changed their vote since Tuesday.
Turnbull has lost the support of his Cabinet and ministry. Yet he is fighting the inevitable. It is either delusion or pure treachery.
That’s not to detract from the treachery that was done unto him by his challenger, Dutton. But it is, still, treachery towards the entire Liberal Party and, worse, the entire country.
He would have Australia remain rudderless, captainless, without a prime minister or functioning government for another two weeks until the next party room meeting is scheduled on September 11.
He would choose to jet off to the Pacific Nations as leader in the VIP jet, rather than face the inevitable today.
To top it all off, despite putting in writing just this week that he would not force a by-election in Wentworth if he was rolled, saying he would not be a wrecker — he now is planning just that.
He will not subject himself to the humiliation of sitting on the backbench or serving under another prime minister for a moment longer, when it is something former prime minister Tony Abbott has been doing for three years.
Instead, Turnbull said Australians would be “appalled” at what has gone on in Canberra this past week.
He is right. The political class has shown, once again, how brutal and depressing their profession is.
But voters would be particularly appalled at the final sabotage and treachery of a prime minister on his way out the door.