Piers Akerman: Labor makes PM Malcolm Turnbull like he’s in the right

MALCOLM Turnbull finally appears to have turned a Right-hand corner as Bill Shorten takes a disastrous Left-turn. Tomorrow’s Newspoll should indicate whether the public is paying attention, Piers Akerman writes.

MALCOLM Turnbull finally appears to have turned a Right-hand corner as Bill Shorten takes a disastrous Left-turn.

Tomorrow’s Newspoll should indicate whether the public is paying attention.

Looking more confident than he has since ousting Tony Abbott, Turnbull is starting to show a little mongrel.

This is timely as a grievous lack of intelligence is becoming more and more apparent among even the most experienced hands on Labor’s House and Senate benches.

Where once sat some of the toughest and wiliest political operators in the Parliament, think Senators Robert Ray and John Faulkner, now slouch a rabble of second-rate failures, time-servers and spivs, some of whom seem to owe their presence in Canberra as much to political correctness as to any political nous.

Consider Senator Penny Wong, for example.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is looking more confident ahead of the latest Newspoll, Piers Akerman says. Picture: AAP Image/Jeremy Ng

Wong, who has not been ­reluctant to display her triple-minority (Asian, homosexual, female) victimhood credentials during her undistinguished political career can legiti­mately be blamed for being at the epicentre of all of the woes the dual citizenship saga has delivered the nation over the past nine months.

If her chief of staff, Marcus Ganley, had not contacted New Zealand Labour MP Chris Hipkins last August to discuss Section 44 of the Australian Constitution, which led Hipkins to ask questions within the NZ Parliament about the possible implications for then deputy Prime Minister Barn­aby Joyce, not only would Joyce probably still hold that office but the other 14 parliamentarians who subsequently fell afoul of the dual citizenship provisions would in all like­lihood still be there.

The July 28 Super Saturday by-elections would not have been necessary and Labor would not have found it necessary to reschedule its triennial national conference which was to be held in Adelaide on that date. Instead, party members will be on the hustings fighting to hold seats they were told by Shorten they were not going to lose.

Maybe Wong was totally unaware of the activities of her chief of staff, possible but doubtful, but she was clearly responsible for her unparliamentary outburst in senate ­estimates on Thursday when she bitterly accused Australian Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers of making a “partisan call” on the timing to prevent ALP members campaigning on the ground on polling day.

“Are you saying that I am partisan?” a clearly shocked Rogers asked.

“I am saying that this looks partisan, the time frames,” Senator Wong replied.

Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong at Senate Estimates at Parliament House last week. Picture: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

Wong also claimed the written advice from the commission was “carefully” written to help the government.

She was defiant when challenged by Finance Minister Mathias Cormann who acc­used her of reflecting on Rogers and shot back: “Yes, I am.”

A clearly angered Rogers forcefully reminded her that four of the five by-elections had been forced on the voters by MPs who were found to have been dual citizens when they nominated, three of them Labor.

Wong’s intemperate attack on the commissioner was not the smartest move as he ­handles the electoral redistribution balance and if he were in fact partisan as outrageously accused by Wong, Labor would be the loser.

Wong’s outburst overlooked the obvious fact that the resignations followed ­repeated declarations from Shorten that there was “no cloud over any of our people”.

She was reminded of her and Labor’s failures by the ­exasperated Rogers who provided her with a succinct lesson, saying: “Several members of the house have resigned as a result of failing to follow pro­cedures, and now somehow the AEC is being fingered as being responsible for the outcomes of this, and I’m sorry, I’m not taking it.”

Nor should he. If the spiteful Wong had any of the civility which one might consider requisite in a shadow minister she should have apologised for her disgraceful outburst.

Labor will defend four seats following the resignations of Susan Lamb (Longman, Queensland), Justine Keay (Braddon, Tasmania) and Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Western Australia) — all of whom ­admitted they were dual citizens when they nominated for the 2016 federal election. Perth MP Tim Hammond had earl­ier resigned citing family reasons — a not unusual plight among Western Australian MPs faced with the long commute and absence from home.

Voters in the South Australian seat of Mayo will also be forced to the polls following the resignation of Centre ­Alliance MP Rebekha Sharkie, a dual British citizen when she nominated.

Each of the illegitimately elected dual citizens has cost the taxpayer a motza. They must have known the reality of their circumstances unless they fell for Shorten’s ludicrous “rolled gold guarantee” that none of his MPs would be caught up in the dual citizenship debacle.

“We have a strict vetting process. There is no cloud over any of our people,” he said.

But by any reading of the Constitution’s S44 makes it as clear as gin that their MPs were “incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives”.

Shorten and his chorus are now whining about the length of time until the by-elections are held but he was in parliament when former Labor prime minister Julia Gillard announced in January 2013 that the election would be held on September 14 of that year.

Labor’s shrieks of outrage were not sufficient to disguise the party’s other major setback — the ham-fisted attempts to falsify a transcript of MP Linda Burney’s dangerously foolish remarks made to respected Sky News host David Speers.

The fact that Burney gave a disturbing commentary on asylum-seeker policy was overshadowed by the crude ­rewriting and doctoring of not only her quotes but also Speers’ questions in a brazenly dishonest attack on transparency.

Both incidents further expose Labor’s lack of character, which combined with its tax attack on ordinary Australians, show the Opposition as unfit to govern for the foreseeable future.