ABC FAIL: DON'T BLAME THE AUSTRALIAN FOR TURNBULL'S FALL

The ABC's Andrew Probyn blames Rupert Murdoch for Malcolm Turnbull's fall: "Until the end, News Corp's The Australian had been unabashed in its advocacy for an end to the Turnbull prime ministership." Two things stand out: Probyn's hypocrisy and his ignorance of what The Australian's main columnists were actually writing.  

The ABC's Andrew Probyn blames Rupert Murdoch for Malcolm Turnbull's fall:  

 

Mr Murdoch told Mr Stokes: "We have got to get rid of Malcolm. If that's the price of getting rid of him then I can put up with three years of Labor."...

Until the end, News Corp's The Australian had been unabashed in its advocacy for an end to the Turnbull prime ministership.

Two things stand out: Probyn's hypocrisy and his ignorance of what The Australian's main columnists were actually writing.

First, the hypocrisy. Where is the ABC's expose on the ABC's own campaign to save Turnbull and destroy his conservative rivals? Here, for instance, is Probyn's attack on Tony Abbott:

The most destructive politician of his generation...

Having drenched the work of climate scientists with contemptuous spittle, the real Tony Abbott has emerged..

The former prime minister's incendiary speech ... strips away all his previous pretence... Mr Abbott claims virtue in saying it as he sees it. Even if it is from the fringe.

But Probyn's ignorance of reality is even more astonishing. 

He claims that "until the end" The Australian  was "unabashed in its advocacy for an end to the Turnbull prime ministership".

Seriously? Did he actually read the paper's main opinion writers? Most, "until the end", were actually against "an end to the Turnbull prime ministership".

Here is Paul Kelly, Editor-at-large of The Australian, on August 18, just six days before Turnbull was forced to resign as Prime Minister:

  Turnbull’s leadership is not in play. He has the overwhelming backing of his cabinet. But conservative MPs are shaking the cage and promoting Peter Dutton as an alternative candidate… Any notion that a leadership ­challenge is the answer for the ­Liberals merely exposes the extent of delusion.

Here is Niki Savva on August 5: 

Right now, there is simply no alternative to Turnbull, and any attempt to remove him would guarantee defeat.  

Here is Peter Van Onselen on August 23, the day before Turnbull was forced out:

 The farce that today has become for the Liberal Party, the government and the country is entirely the fault of the Dutton forces and the reactionaries who brought the leadership to a head...

If Scott Morrison defeats Dutton in a showdown that would be a shame, simply because the Dutton forces need to own the outcome of the mess they have created — the election outcome that will follow this mess.

Here is van Onselen on July 30, arguing against a leadership change:

 [Turnbull's] only saving grace remains that there is no ready-made alternative leader who can trail his or her coat. Tony Abbott is well and truly yesterday’s man, Peter Dutton doesn’t have broad enough appeal, Julie Bishop is too internally divisive and Mathias Cormann is in the wrong chamber.

Scott Morrison might fancy his chances, but he hasn’t excelled ­sufficiently at selling the government’s economic credentials in an increasingly good economic context to step up into the leadership.

All of which doesn’t even account for the inevitable transaction costs of changing leaders.

Here is columnist Troy Bramston on August 22:

 Leadership contests are always a toxic mix of ambition and animosity. It rarely ends well for the incumbent or challenger. Disunity is death in politics. Voters will judge the Liberals harshly. Keating is the only person to seize the prime ministership and go on to increase his party’s vote and seats at the next election.

Here is columnist Chris Kenny on August 21:

Twice over nine years Turnbull has allowed himself to get wildly out of sync with his party on climate and energy policy. The party room has forced a humiliating policy climb down and now might take back the prime ministership. We shall see.

Yet no matter what, the questions for our democracy will linger.

Can we slow down the pace, learn to respect mandates and accept that in all but the most sensational of circumstances it is voters who should pass judgment on their prime ministers?

Where is Probyn's evidence that The Australian was campaigning to remove Turnbull when most of its main columnists were in fact campaigning to save him?

UPDATE

Probyn should come clean on who is driving this story that Turnbull is just a victim of the wicked Murdoch, and not his own catastrophic errors of judgement. I suspect these passages give  away his source:

"Malcolm has got to go," Mr Murdoch told Mr Stokes, according to multiple re-tellings of the conversation, relayed back to Mr Turnbull by Mr Stokes...

 One version, told to the ABC, is that Mr Murdoch told Mr Stokes:

"We have got to get rid of Malcolm. If that's the price of getting rid of him then I can put up with three years of Labor."...

The ABC understands that Mr Turnbull's concerns about his political mortality drove him to call Mr Murdoch himself, just days before he lost his job.

The billionaire told him he was not driving any campaign against him but said he was not responsible for what "Boris" might be doing. By Boris, he meant Paul Whittaker, the editor-in-chief of The Australian.

Who would have told Probyn - directly or through intermediaries -  about two private phone calls Turnbull had, and what was allegedly said to Turnbull in them? In whose interests was it to make Turnbull seem a victim of a plot and not a victim of his own stupidity?