Piers Akerman: For their sins, the Liberal Party may have to ordain Julie Bishop as the new leader

THE deputy-to-all-leaders Julie Bishop is now openly trailing her coat in the hope of being seen as a viable successor, Piers Akerman writes.

Piers Akerman.

MALCOLM Turnbull’s leadership of the Liberal Party is now terminal.

The deputy-to-all-leaders Julie Bishop is now openly trailing her coat in the hope of being seen as a viable successor.

In doing so, she presents a real challenge to Turnbull’s flailing leadership because, despite her truly dismal record as shadow Treasurer, she has won kudos for her stylish appearance if not for any actual achievements, as Foreign Minister.

This changes the whole ­dynamic of the Liberal Party’s leadership implosion.

A week ago, Liberals had come to the realisation that Turnbull’s uninspiring leadership was taking them backward but they saw no realistic successor should they continue to follow the Labor model of leader replacement with all its incumbent perils.

Will Julie Bishop replace PM Malcolm Turnbull as leader of the Liberal Party? Picture: AAP/Mick Tsikas

Though Peter Dutton’s name had been bandied about, the party seems to have moved so far to the Centre Left that his raw conservatism frightened the hand-wringing bedwetters who gave Turnbull their support for his successful putsch against Tony Abbott in September, 2015.

Bishop’s emergence will give the disillusioned Turnbull supporters a focal point. They will use her popularity with the public as the vehicle to unseat Turnbull when they decide to cut their losses.

Entreaties to rally ­behind Turnbull will largely fall on deaf ears. He was unrelenting in his campaign to ­unseat Abbott from the prime ministership, even from the party leadership, and has shown loyalty only to himself.

The fawning Canberra press gallery has readily overlooked Turnbull’s egoistical failings and some have been unrelenting in their campaign to continue to blame Abbott for every one of Turnbull’s flaws.

How could they have forgotten that it was Turnbull, an Opposition backbencher, within a week of his toppling by the party room in December, 2009, who called “bullshit” on his leader’s climate change policy.

Turnbull, on December 7, wrote: “While a shadow minister, Tony Abbott was never afraid of speaking bluntly in a manner that was at odds with Coalition policy. So as I am a humble backbencher I am sure he won’t complain if I tell a few home truths about the farce that the Coalition’s policy, of lack of policy, on climate change has descended into ...”

Yet, a fortnight ago when Abbott made an extremely thoughtful address on approaches to policy issues that might stem the flow of Liberals leaving the party, the press ­gallery and Turnbull made it into a personality issue and ­ignored the importance of the policy discussion.

Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop could have the support to be the Liberal Party leader. Picture: AAP/Mick Tsikas

Turnbull’s media backers are still trying to pump up his political tyres, flat as they are, with sightings of new strengths that apparently elude all outside the rarefied air of the Canberra bubble.

On February 26, veteran ­reporter Paul Kelly writing in The Australian said “Turnbull has had three strong weeks and injected new hope into the party”.

Any accurate examination of Turnbull’s actions over the previous three weeks would have dispelled any such notion. He has been indecisive about almost everything this year except support for Israel’s strong Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for which he deserves the utmost praise.

That aside, he waffled at the National Press Club, he flubbed it on the question of his own donation to the Liberal Party, he was at a loss after his phone call with US President Donald Trump, and left hanging when the TPP was killed off.

When he rightly slams the South Australian government for its economy deadening reliance on unreliable wind farms and solar energy, he only ­reminds voters that he was for many years the foremost champion of such power sources, and indeed slagged those who questioned his green mantra as climate ­deniers.

It doesn’t take a lot of wit to understand what conservatives, the so-called Centre Right, want, and for many in that camp it is not One ­Nation’s simplistic policies.

Despite her truly dismal record as shadow Treasurer, she has won kudos for her stylish appearance if not for any actual achievements, as Foreign Minister.

Abbott’s critics should have read the remarks he made when launching the Making Australia Right collection of essays edited by Queensland legal academic James Allan.

They would at least have had some sense of what core conservatives think needs remedying. He singled out a contribution from former Labor minister Gary Johns who wrote: “The Right believes in less taxation and less ­government interference in ­people’s lives: in short, liberty.

“But in a world where more Australians vote for their money than work for it, and the constituency beholden to government for benefits and jobs is expanding, the constituency for winning votes with tax cuts and deregulation is diminishing. Selling stringency and ­insecurity is not going to win elections.”

Rather, he said, “the Right have to advance a cultural ­debate in conjunction with the economic one. The Right have to promote a discussion that has, at worst, no cost to the budget and builds a constituency. It is not a case of ‘bread and circuses’, of creating diversions, but of the necessity to build a constituency that trusts government to be less intrusive. It is a necessity (in order) to overcome the shameless bribery that all politicians indulge in, but especially the Left”.

Turnbull has always shirked the hard ­debate on conservative culture. Look at the shameful manner with which he has failed to stake a position on free speech in the 18C debate, and the Left have continued their march through the institutions on his watch.

Labor is even now attempting to make it a crime for a government department to correct the record when it is under attack.

If Labor is successful, anyone will be able to tell lies about the government and there will be no avenue of redress.

The stylish Bishop may not be the answer but unless the Liberals sort out their serious problems pronto, Bill Shorten will lead a party totally unfit to govern in Australia into office at the next election.