There’s nothing conservative about tearing down PMs

TURNBULL’S greatest failing as Prime Minister was that he gave conservative voters the wrong vibe. But that’s not a good enough reason for yet another Liberal coup, says Miranda Devine.

ONE good thing about last week’s prime ministerial coup is at least we might get a respite from the relentless unhinged vitriol of Turnbull derangement syndrome.

Morning, noon and night, on our airwaves, on social media, in commentary, in talkback and reader comments, the hatred spewed forth and convinced a small army of “sheeple” that Malcolm Turnbull was the devil incarnate.

It did become a form of collective madness. In the end the bloodlust grew impossible to resist.

And these are people who call themselves conservatives.

I hardly knew the former PM, despite being accused of being a “one-eyed” camp follower. I just didn’t think he was evil, and I thought his government deserved credit for a dogged, methodical job of cleaning up the mess they had inherited.

Yes, Turnbull’s instincts were too socially liberal for my liking. He was a climate catastrophist and a globalist. He was too delighted about same sex marriage, too exercised about carbon dioxide.

But under the influence of conservatives in his cabinet and understanding the need to keep the so-called “Broad Church” happy, his government enacted conservative policy.

The hatred spewed forth and convinced a small army of “sheeple” that Malcolm Turnbull was the devil incarnate. (Pic: Kym Smith)

He cut taxes, and had the budget under control. He kept Tony Abbott’s tough border protection, quietly reduced immigration, ensured the special intake of Syrian refugees were mainly Christian. He ended the Abbott-government’s funding of Safe Schools, the kiddie gender-theory menace. He helped stop the most recent euthanasia bill. He instituted a people’s vote on same sex marriage which conservatives demanded. He called an election on union busting, and in the end, with his precious National Energy Guarantee, he capitulated entirely to backbench rebels, right down to removing the emissions reduction target from legislation, and then they attacked him for it.

He just wasn’t enthusiastic about conservative issues like John Howard or Abbott were. His reign was tainted with blood, and he didn’t connect personally with the electorate.

A pollster doing qualitative polling a few weeks ago asked a group of ordinary voters: “Who is disappointed with the Turnbull government?”, and most put up their hand. But when asked why, they couldn’t answer. “It’s just how they feel”, said the pollster.

But surely we judge a leader on deeds rather than vibe?

Now the MPs who tore him down are even blaming him for the coup, trying to say that he destroyed his own prime ministership by calling on the leadership vote in the party room last Tuesday. As if the Dutton forces weren’t circling for the kill.

The stupidity is that despite the Abbott insurgency the polls were coming good. John Howard once said he would have “killed for” a 49 to 51 per cent poll on a two-party basis before the 2007 election. Internal polling was even more positive.

Now Scott Morrison, able as he is, has become the first prime minister in three decades not to benefit from a post-spill bounce.

What I have learned from this conservative fratricide is that the right is just as vicious as the left. Regular readers of this column would be surprised to learn that I am now regarded as a “leftie” or a “wet” because I opposed the coup against Turnbull.

“True conservatives”, the haters call themselves.

But there’s nothing conservative about tearing down prime ministers. Nothing conservative about catching Labor’s “NSW disease”.

Conservatives favour stability, are cautious about embarking on drastic change and seriously consider the consequences.

I’ve been against every coup in the last decade.

I was not a fan of Labor PM Kevin Rudd but when he was knifed in 2009, I wrote

“For all Kevin Rudd’s annoying quirks and policy failures, voters didn’t hate him. And they are not happy at being cheated out of the right to vote out — or not — the man they voted in”.

And then in 2015 when the Liberal party room began circling Tony Abbott, not even two years into his first term, I wrote this: “Unlike a toaster, trading in your prime minister is not free of consequences.

“For the Liberal Party, tossing out Tony Abbott would be a disastrous breach of trust with the electorate; an ­admission of catastrophic failure where none exists.

“It would vindicate the disastrous Rudd-Gillard-Rudd era, and destroy the Liberals’ reputational ­advantage over Labor.

“It would cement the destructive idea that all political parties are run like oligarchies by people you wouldn’t invite into your home.”

And so it proved.

There is no answer now for Turnbull’s decapitation. (Pic: AAP/Mick Tsikas)

Before Abbott was knifed I wrote: “The first question voters will ask is why? What has ­Abbott done wrong that such a drastic step is required?”

There was no answer voters could understand then. There was no answer when Rudd was rolled.

And there is no answer now for Turnbull’s decapitation. The insiders can’t explain it. No politician I have asked can give a coherent answer.

Some of my conservative friends tell me I put too much store in stability, that societal upheaval coincides with political chaos.

PM Scomo is a far better retail politician than the aloof patrician Turnbull and he’s giving it a red hot go. But you could see in the body language of ministers being sworn in yesterday that there are wounds which may never heal.

It is an ominous portent that while the government was tearing itself apart, the first illegal boat of asylum seekers in four years reached our shores, near Cape Kimberley.

Maybe if Peter Dutton had concentrated on the job the Australian people pay him to do instead of ineptly trying to stage a leadership coup the people smugglers would not have seized the chance.

He warns there are 14,000 asylum seekers waiting to come to Australia the minute Labor is elected, but he and his fellow plotters have all but ensured that outcome.

Winter is coming.