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Peta Credlin: Entitled grandees like Malcolm Turnbull trying to teal Liberal votes

Malcolm Turnbull doesn’t seem grateful the Liberal Party once gave him the prime ministership. What’s with these entitled grandees thinking their personal political preference is all that counts? Peta Credlin asks.

Turnbull is doing 'damage to himself' after indicating support for independents

With the government fighting for its life against bad polls, an unfavourable redistribution and the wear and tear that comes from being nine years old, the last thing it needs is “friendly fire”.

But that’s just what it got from Washington last week from someone who doesn’t seem very grateful that the Liberal Party once gave him the prime ministership.

Mind you Malcolm Turnbull wasn’t the only ingrate, even if he was the most predictable. Former Liberal senate leader Fred Chaney also dumped on the party that had put him into parliament, announcing that its supposedly hard line views were forcing him to vote for his niece, who’s running as one of the teal independents in Perth’s poshest seat of Curtin.

What’s with these entitled grandees thinking their personal political preference is all that counts?

With the Opposition leader doing his best to lose the election via repeated gaffes, Labor’s best hope of victory – certainly its insurance policy – may be a hung parliament, with the prime ministership then in the hands of so-called independents: the teal wannabes, assembled by Simon Holmes a Court (another entitled millionaire who stands to get even richer out of his renewable energy investments if his teals gain influence), now campaigning against the Liberal Party for supposedly not doing enough on climate change and integrity in government.

Former PM Malcolm Turnbull hit back at the Liberal Party.
Former PM Malcolm Turnbull hit back at the Liberal Party.

No prizes for guessing whom they’d prefer out of Albanese or Morrison.

As Albanese stumbled on the NDIS last week, out came Turnbull to try to save him, virtually begging Liberal voters to switch, saying that, “if more of these teal independents win, it will (stop) the capture of the Liberal Party” by what he calls the hard right even though what he regards as ‘hard right’ polices are actually what the Liberals used to stand for before he stole the top job and tried to wrench the party to the left.

When door-stopped after his vitriolic speech in the US, the former Liberal leader was shameless, pointedly refusing to say he’d vote Liberal.

You’ve got to ask, haven’t you, what possessed the Liberal Party to make this bloke leader – not once, but twice?

Although there is some irony here: it’s the bedwetters who made him PM in 2015 that are most at risk of losing their seats this time around.

Watch Peta Credlin on Sky News, weeknights at 6pm

Peta Credlin
Peta CredlinColumnist

Peta Credlin AO is a weekly columnist with The Australian, and also with News Corp Australia’s Sunday mastheads, including The Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Herald Sun. Since 2017 she has hosted her successful prime-time program Credlin on Sky News Australia, Monday to Thursday at 6.00pm. For 16 years, Peta was a policy adviser to the Howard government ministers in the portfolios of defence, communications, immigration, and foreign affairs. Between 2009 and 2015, she was chief of staff to Tony Abbott as Leader of the Opposition and later as prime minister. Peta is admitted as a barrister and solicitor in Victoria, with legal qualifications from the University of Melbourne and the Australian National University.

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Original URL: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/peta-credlin-entitled-grandees-like-malcolm-turnbull-trying-to-teal-liberal-votes/news-story/5f14a4f18ef2c652100f7b09731cf375