Shady, shabby Shorten gets away with it again
WHY has the government allowed itself to look incompetent in this citizenship saga while Bill Shorten gets away with pretending Labor is squeaky clean, asks Miranda Devine.
Rendezview
Don't miss out on the headlines from Rendezview. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- Miranda Devine: Don’t forget, Labor left us with Manus mess
- Miranda Devine: Green councils’ blatant theft of private property
AMID the Prime Minister’s existential citizenship crisis, Tony Abbott was making merry mischief on Friday night.
The occasion was a tribute dinner thrown by the Warringah federal conference of the Liberal Party to celebrate Abbott’s nearly 25 years (23, to be precise) as the Member for Warringah, and presumably to mark his recent 60th birthday.
Almost 900 supporters packed the Exhibition Hall in the old Eveleigh rail yards to hear Abbott, Liberal Party federal president Nick Greiner, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton (the “very best minister in this government”, Abbott billed him), and former-general-likely-future-senator Jim Molan take the stage in what had every appearance of a revival meeting.
READ MORE: PM Malcolm Turnbull threatens Labor over dual citizenship
“I have now been in the parliament for almost a quarter century,” Abbott said, signing off a classic stump speech.
“I finally know what I’m doing, and I want to assure you I have plenty of public life left in me. So tonight I rededicate myself, I repledge myself, to your service.”
A standing ovation ensued, and then this chant from a couple of enthusiastic tables: “Come back Tony, Come back Tony.”
The air is thick with schadenfreude these days.
But, despite all the wishful thinking in the room for an Abbott restoration, Malcolm Turnbull has two things going for him: a) party-room conservatives don’t believe in leadership spills; and b) no one in their right mind would want the poisoned chalice of the leadership while the citizenship fiasco is crippling government, and before thorny issues such as same-sex marriage and energy are dealt with.
Turnbull-haters might be relishing his collision with the karma train, but that won’t help the Coalition win the next election, which may come sooner than anyone thought.
As Molan tactfully told the crowd: “Our enemy is not ourselves (but) the Greens and Labor. That’s who we have to focus on.”
Correct. The biggest failure of this government is its flat-footedness when it comes to the political dark arts, and never has that been more obvious than in the citizenship saga.
Yesterday, backbencher John Alexander became the latest Coalition MP to announce his resignation, after confirming he is a dual national, via British citizenship inherited from his father, and thus ineligible to sit in parliament.
He will now have to contest a by-election, likely before Christmas, to win back his safe-ish seat of Bennelong.
Alexander follows surprise Kiwi Barnaby Joyce, whose by-election on December 2 should see him win back his seat of New England.
This brings the Coalition’s numbers in the House of Representatives to 74 of the remaining 148 seats, including the Speaker, versus Labor’s 69 seats, with more Liberal MPs, such as Alex Hawke, with citizenship doubts.
But why has the government allowed itself to look incompetent in its candidate-vetting procedures for three months while Bill Shorten gets away with pretending Labor is squeaky clean?
On Friday Shorten brazenly brushed off media questions about dual-national Labor MPs by professing to be “staggered” by the Coalition’s “abysmal ignorance of the Constitution”.
What a joke.
At last count, as many as 17 Labor MPs are under a citizenship cloud and refuse to produce renunciation papers. Labor’s Justine Keay last week admitted she was still a British citizen when she contested last year’s election.
Other Labor MPs with suspected dual citizenship include: Penny Wong (Malaysia-born, Malaysian father), Tanya Plibersek (Slovenian parents), Brendan O’Connor (British-born, Irish parents), David Feeney (Irish father/British rights), Pat Conroy (British father), Peter Khalil (Egyptian parents), Madeleine King (British father), Susan Lamb (British father), Brian Mitchell (British-born, Irish mother), Maria Vamvakinou (Greek born), Josh Wilson (British-born), Tony Zappia (Italian born), Senator Doug Cameron (Scottish born), Senator Katy Gallagher (British parents, mother born in Ecuador), Senator Sue Lines (British father) and Senator Deborah O’Neill (Irish parents).
Shorten’s pretence that Labor has superior vetting processes is falling apart. He is left looking shabby and shady.
The real question is: When did Shorten know his MPs were at risk and who has been telling them to keep quiet?
Other than Abbott loyalist Eric Abetz, few Liberals are asking.
It takes a special political skill for the government to let Labor get away with a cover-up while Coalition MPs are punished for honesty.
************
Miranda Devine: Faction fight heats up in North Sydney
‘Moderates’ prove their power
SADLY, the Photios faction of the NSW Liberal Party got its candidate up yesterday afternoon in the preselection to fill the upper house berth about to be vacated by former state finance minister Greg Pearce.
The victor, with 66 votes, was Pearce’s former staffer Natalie Ward, who is married to David Begg, the business partner of controversial lobbyist Michael Photios, and who until recently was a shareholder in the company that part-owns Photios’ firm PremierState.
KPMG executive Rachel Merton, who was backed by both the right faction and the Alex Hawke centre-right faction, only mustered 58 votes, despite a reference from her former boss John Howard. The result was a blow for Liberals pushing for the removal of Photios’ influence over the party.
************
Any cause is good enough for haters
THE spitting, snarling protesters outside the Tony Abbott tribute dinner in Eveleigh on Friday night had to be seen to be believed.
Ostensibly protesting against Manus Island, they lunged at Abbott’s sister Christine Forster as she arrived, and ripped her jacket in half. Other guests were pelted with tomatoes and Abbott’s 93-year-old father Dick had to be carried to safety by police officers.
If it weren’t for the police, people would have been hurt.
“Death to Dutton” read a protest banner, though immigration minister Peter Dutton was spared the sight, since he slipped in a side entrance with his bodyguards.
Another guest recognised faces from previous protests against same-sex marriage, showing that for left-wing haters, any cause will do.