Survivor Bill: Outwitted, outplayed, but can he outlast?

Malcolm Turnbull’s very public flaying of Bill Shorten comes at a critical time in the Labor leader’s career.

Question Time

ANALYSIS

Congratulations, Bill Shorten. You are one of only four Opposition Leaders of the past two decades to have survived longer than two years.

The week of the Labor leader’s second anniversary may not have ended as he wanted — but he can celebrate one thing: At least he outlasted Tony Abbott.

Just as Mr Abbott boasted he had removed two Labor prime ministers in Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, Mr Shorten can point to his former rival’s current seat on the Coalition backbench.

But after a very public smackdown by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, when an attempt to find a weak spot backfired disastrously, surviving Mr Abbott’s may be the only comfort he has at the moment.

“We are in an absolutely winnable position and I think Bill Shorten should be given credit for getting rid of first-term Prime Minister Tony Abbott — the most unpopular prime minister Australia’s had in generations,” Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek said of her boss’s milestone.

“That happened because Bill Shorten held him to account and Labor held him to account and it happened because we’ve been presenting a positive policy alternative with our extra investment in universities, coding in schools, 50 per cent renewable energy target, new plans for more independent infrastructure investment.”

Mr Shorten’s actual anniversary was on Tuesday, which marked two years to the day since he defeated Anthony Albanese in Labor’s first two-stream ballot — rank and file plus MPs — to become party leader.

Since January, 1995, there have been 12 Leaders of the Opposition in federal Parliament.

Just three of them — John Howard, Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott — have gone on to snatch the prime ministership from an incumbent at an election. A fourth, Malcolm Turnbull, became Prime Minister through a party room challenge.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten came off second best in Question Time on Thursday. Picture: Kym Smith

Mr Shorten is determined to become the fourth to win an election campaign, and up until this week, appeared to base his strategy on a genuine contest of ideas.

By Wednesday, though, the positive campaign had crashed into a ditch of negativity, with snide Labor attacks on Malcolm Turnbull and his vast wealth, specifically where he keeps it and how much tax he pays.

Labor’s central charge was that as a rich Australian (he and wife Lucy Turnbull’s net worth has been pegged at about $200 million) Mr Turnbull is a member of an elite group able do things with his money that others can’t.

The supporting evidence was that Mr Turnbull had investment accounts in the Cayman Islands — which he himself has previously publicly declared — and that he was wealthy. That was it. There was no substantive claim he had done anything illegal, immoral or unethical. And it wasn’t long before the personal attack was turned skilfully onto Mr Shorten himself.

When Labor frontbencher Andrew Leigh took up the tax offensive, Mr Turnbull fired back: “He is a former professor of economics, and I know him well enough to know how uncomfortable he feels having to do the dirty work that the Leader of the Opposition is not prepared to do himself.”

Far from playing down his fortune, Mr Turnbull called out a desperate Opposition Leader trying to stir up “the politics of envy” and accused him of wasting precious Parliamentary time on personal smears.

“(He) could be talking today about the economy, could be asking about growth, could be proposing some new ideas on innovation or enterprise”.

Malcolm Turnbull quickly despatched with Labor’s attack, but has been weaker in his defense of policy issues. Picture: Kym Smith

The Opposition has performed better in Parliament holding the Turnbull Government to account on the policy issues which will help decide the next election, less than 12 months from now.

On Wednesday, Labor exposed Treasurer Scott Morrison as not being fully across the detail of his portfolio, a contrast to his deft and at times heavy-handed control as Immigration Minister and later Social Services Minister under Tony Abbott.

Mr Morrison faces the twin problems of falling revenue and increasing expenditure after two years of Coalition budgets, and has difficulty getting the balance right in his responses to questions. However, he did manage to lift his game later in the week.

Prime Minister Turnbull was hit with questions on the shabby retirement savings which condemn many women to struggles in later age, his support for retirement at 70, cuts to Family Tax Benefit B. It was legitimate testing of his grasp of matters which directly affect millions of Australians.

The positive Shorten strategy was strengthened by the release last week of a public-private infrastructure program which could create as many as 30,000 jobs, and a shadow ministry reshuffle which promoted women and highlighted measures to assist new investments, innovation and start-ups.

And Mr Shorten maintained a bipartisan position on national security.

But one Abbott legacy continues to stalk him: the hearings of the Trade Union Royal Commission.

The Opposition Leader reads the transcripts of current proceedings and maintains his pride in work he says he did for members while head of the Australian Workers’ Union.

He has also raised debate about penalty rates to project the argument that his role as AWU chief would help him fight any wage-reducing policies of Coalition governments.

A final resolution of the Commission is well down the track.

But his attacks on Malcolm Turnbull’s personal history will not have discouraged his opponent from exploiting Mr Shorten’s own contested past as a trade union leader.

Originally published as Survivor Bill: Outwitted, outplayed, but can he outlast?