Piers Akerman: Can Coalition pull out of current death-dive?
THE government is being outflanked by Labor players and needs to bring back its tribal fighters, not the effete elites, and restore policy that cuts through.
Opinion
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THE Coalition is corkscrewing toward defeat at the next election in a death spiral reminiscent of the Gillard government’s fatal collapse. Julia Gillard, the 27th Prime Minister, was undone by the man she politically assassinated, Kevin Rudd, and by her unwise decision to bring the Greens and a coterie of independent MPs inside the tent.
Scott Morrison is being undone by his predecessor Malcolm Turnbull and now depends on febrile crossbench Independents to guarantee supply. Turnbull is by far a more treacherous an enemy than Rudd.
Last Monday, after accepting an invitation from Morrison to represent Australia at a conference on oceans in Bali, Turnbull briefed the media on talks he had with Indonesian President Joko Widodo about a number of sensitive topics he had briefed on.
No diplomat would countenance discussing the content of talks conducted with a foreign leader on behalf of his nation unless it was with the permission of his government.
Not only did Turnbull not have any such permission, he went further and added his own views on current government policy.
Any diplomat, no matter how senior, who had acted in such a manner would have been dismissed.
Turnbull owed his prime ministership to the good offices of the nation’s most respected living former prime minister John Howard. Howard talked the petulant Turnbull out of quitting politics in 2010. It was possibly the greatest error of judgment Howard ever made.
After winning office from opposition, Prime Minister Tony Abbott gave Turnbull respect and a ministerial position.
Turnbull rewarded Howard and Abbott by undermining the Liberal Party they loved and nurtured through his refusal to campaign for the worthy Liberal candidate Dave Sharma during last month’s by-election in his old seat of Wentworth, and he thanked Abbott by relentlessly undermining his authority and provoking the leadership spill in which he replaced Abbott and subsequently lost the Coalition’s command of the numbers in the Lower House.
Rudd waited until he published his memoirs before settling scores.
Turnbull never hesitated in his attempts to destroy the Coalition government after leaving the Lodge and he will not stop until Labor is in office.
The contrast between Turnbull and Abbott could not be greater. Since losing the prime ministership, Abbott has campaigned for members in electorates across the country. To the best of my knowledge, he never leaked against Turnbull (even after Turnbull rewarded him by excluding him from Cabinet). His disagreements were over policy.
Turnbull’s attacks were always about personality. Abbott has never sided with a foreign government against Australian policy as Turnbull did in Indonesia over the mooted move of Australia’s Israeli embassy to Israel’s capital, Jerusalem.
How obsequious Turnbull appeared as he agreed that Indonesia’s concerns about such a move could threaten Australia’s relationship with the world’s largest Muslim nation, forgetting that our greatest relationship is with the US which has already moved its embassy to Jerusalem with little, if any, blowback, and that Muslim nations up and down the Gulf are moving to distance themselves from the almost friendless undemocratic terrorist-supporting Palestinian Authority.
As a member of the NSW Rural Fire Service, I became aware last week that Abbott had been awarded the National Medal given for long service to members of certain organisations. Abbott has been an operational member of the Davidson branch of the RFS for 16 years.
The citation read in part: “Tony’s commitment and involvement in the brigade and the NSW RFS has never faltered demonstrated by his regular attendance at the brigade and him maintaining his operational membership status since joining the brigade.”
Abbott was nominated by current Davidson captain Trent Dowling, who added: “Congratulations once again, I know there are those out there that doubt why and what you do with us but those of us that count know what you do and how you do it.”
Turnbull is unlikely to ever receive such an endorsement.
According to the WWII aviator’s manual it’s just possible to pull a plane out of a death spiral by getting rid of the downward kinetic energy by switching the power off, levelling the wings to the horizon and putting back pressure on the controls until a safe speed is reached and the aircraft can be levelled off and power restored.
The Coalition has to cut the power to the Turnbull diehards and level off.
Then it has to restore power by giving frontbench seats to the pilots who the public credit with a track record of delivery.
This may mean bringing Julie Bishop back, even Barnaby Joyce (though I can understand many women would not stomach such a move), and of course, Abbott.
The Coalition partner, the National Party, lacks decisive leadership and is not in a position to deliver the seats it did under Joyce.
The Labor Party has its seasoned front bench and the government is not marking the Labor players with equal firepower, to use a football analogy.
Bring back the tribal fighters, not the effete elites, and speedily restore policy that cuts through — the ground is approaching at appalling speed.