Turnbull has finally ended Canberra’s ‘killing seasons’

EVER since Rudd’s election in 2007, Canberra’s shenanigans have been a round the clock version of Survivor. Turnbull has now showed slow and steady wins the race, writes Miranda Devine.

THE quiet revolution of the Turnbull government has been to bring the boring back to politics after a decade of high farce.

Ever since Kevin Rudd was elected Prime Minister in 2007 pretending to be a younger, blonder John Howard, Australia has been living the ancient Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times”.

Before he was elected in 1996, Howard was mocked for telling the ABC his vision was to make Australia “relaxed and comfortable”. It was too prosaic an ambition for ABC visionaries but that was what he achieved and it was to our great benefit, until we took it for granted.

The upshot of our complacency was a rollercoaster of interesting times via the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd-Abbott-Turnbull turnstile, with a cascade of calamitous consequences which will echo for generations, from wrongheaded energy policy and baked-in spending on big new government programs to a vacuum of cultural leadership.

Once Julia Gillard rolled Kevin Rudd for the position of prime minister, Canberra became a rollercoaster of regicide. (Pic: News Corp)

Worst of all, at a time of great media industry transition, 24/7 outlets became addicted to a new business model: political chaos, “killing seasons” and regicide. Ratings soared, clicks raged, newspapers flew off the shelves as Canberra’s shenanigans became a round the clock version of Survivor, cheap entertainment for idle baby-boomers.

Rudd, with his Milky Boy antics unusual speech patterns and peculiar personality was compelling viewing from the start. It began with viral YouTube videos of the odd leaked temper tantrum, or surreptitious ear wax munching. And then suddenly Rudd was rolled by the Faceless Men, Bill Shorten, Mark Arbib, Karl Bitar, David Feeney, Don Farrell and Paul Howes, only one of whom, incidentally, still survives

And the show got interesting. Rudd wept real tears in the prime ministerial courtyard.

His replacement Julia Gillard was launched as the perfect villain. Lady Macbeth, blood on her hands, with red hair, a voice that would cut glass, a talent for mispronouncing words and a hairdresser boyfriend straight out of Kath and Kim. Too good. The bogans were in the Lodge. That’s actually Rudd’s joke. He used to refer to his former home as “Bogan-ville” once Gillard moved in.

Then Rudd became the stalker, and you know the rest of the story.

Gillard fought back valiantly, a wounded gazelle on the Canberra veldt, her final cri de coeur being the “misogyny speech” which went made her an instant feminist icon around the world and gave her a permanent platform with Hillary Clinton. Rudd won back his throne momentarily before the audience otherwise known as the voters killed him off. Ratings soared!

Former PM Tony Abbott promised stability when he was elected, but his leadership fell short. (Pic: Lukas Coch/AAP)

Columnists like me who hardly used to write about politics suddenly had been reborn as political commentators. Not that I particularly wanted it that way, but politics consumed the news. Economies of scale in the industry had also conspired over this time to ensure that the media focused on Canberra rather than state or local politics, because outlets were saving money by going national, and journalists were being published in multiple cities so they had to keep it relevant. It was a fun ride while it lasted as far as the media were concerned. But it was supposed to be over in 2013. The Abbott government promised stability. The grown-ups were back in charge, or so we were told.

The guy who owned the cafe up the street told me he was relieved that he no longer had to watch the news. He had a government he could trust to do their job so he could go ahead and do his, run a small business.

And then came the 2014 budget shocker and we realised that the Abbott era was more of the same. There was onion eating and gongs for Prince Phillip. The media-political class addiction to political instability was insatiable.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has brought stability back to politics. (Pic: Daniel Pockett/AAP)

Of course politics as soap opera came naturally to a generation of political staffers weaned on a diet of West Wing and House of Cards who strut the corridors of Parliament House like extras in a movie in their head. Politicians had become wannabe TV stars spending their days and nights performing for their colleagues on shows their constituents never see.

Stephen Conroy, as Communication Minister under Rudd and Gillard once lamented to a friend of mine that he should never have allowed Sky News into Parliament House where it now airs in every nook and cranny. Presumably he was concerned about the detrimental effect on the political culture which would see both his bosses fall to coups. Now he appears as a panellist every second day.

That genie can never be put back in the bottle.

But what Turnbull has done is apply the Mogadon.

By being neither politician nor showman, but simply a businessman interested in spreadsheets and the bottom line, he has slowly but surely righted the ship of state and cleared away the barnacles he inherited. The focus, patience, perseverance. His government is systematically restoring order to each portfolio, finessing legislation through parliament and implementing their agenda. Slow and steady wins the race.

He’s criticised for not being good at the politics. But since the politics have been so thoroughly degraded in the past decade, that’s no bad thing.

Of course Never-Turnbull conservatives are as bad as Never Trumpers in the US so Turnbull will never get anything but grudging credit from his own side for starving the beast. But then keeping a lid on the simmering hubris that is one of his flaws is not such a bad thing.