Inept Malcolm Turnbull has to go, for the sake of the Coalition and the country

WE simply cannot afford, we simply cannot risk, a government that continues to be led by someone as monumentally inept, in political and policy terms, as Turnbull, writes Terry McCrann.

Malcolm Turnbull has to go. Immediately, writes Terry McCrann. Picture: William West/AFP

MALCOLM Turnbull has to go. Immediately.

If he won’t resign, he has to be sacked by his party, or by the National Party refusing to form a coalition — in government or in opposition — under his leadership.

Turnbull’s departure — not just from the Lodge but from parliament — is in the interests of the Coalition and of the country. We simply cannot afford, we simply cannot risk, a government that continues to be led by someone as monumentally inept, in political and policy terms, as Turnbull.

It is irrelevant whether the government manages to scrape back with a razor-thin majority or we are taken back to a 2010 future with a minority government.

Even with a (slim) majority government, he would be completely unable to function with the Senate mess that he has single-handedly created.

I wrote in April that Turnbull was a complete dud and that he would lose the election. It should have been blindingly clear even then that he had stuffed up his (short) prime ministership and was on the way to creating a Senate catastrophe that will utterly destroy any prospect of significant Budget or structural reform.

He’s lost either all or most of Tony Abbott’s substantial majority. The far more devastating legacy is to make it impossible for any future Coalition government to get reform through the Senate, precisely when the need has never been more desperate.

We are now in a far worse position than in 2010. Back then the China boom was just gathering steam; now it is well and truly over. We’ve had six more years of big Budget deficits which have added over $220 billion to our national debt. And there are big deficits as far as the eye can see. We now also face the consequences of the shock (to all those “clever” people) Brexit vote.

It’s not Britain’s departure from the European Union that’s the worry, but the way the world’s major central banks are printing money and keeping interest rates at zero, or indeed negative.

The bottom line is Turnbull is completely incapable of managing the policy, not just the politics, of these desperate times. He has to go and the time for him to go is now. It would be a disaster for both the party and the country for him to limp on uselessly for even another month.

If he had the slightest shred of self-awareness he would realise his position is completely untenable.

Failing that, you’d hope some glimmer of recognition of the impossibility of continuing as leader would filter into his brain.

But failing that, he has to be sacked. And immediately.