Words that might come back to bite Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull

FORMER Prime Minister Tony Abbott was burned at the stake after losing 30 opinion polls in a row. Now it could be Malcolm Turnbull’s turn.

Malcolm Turnbull might be soon eating his words after he wrestled the top job off former Prime Minister Tony Abbott after he lost 30 consecutive opinion polls.

WE SHOULD settle down a tad before rampant trigintiphobia takes over politics and we start burning prime ministers at the polls.

We will know whether calm prevails over superstition on April 9 when the later Newspoll results are published.

Trigintiphobia is fear of the number 30 and it has an association with the voodoo side of political analysis because of what happened to Tony Abbott in 2015.

Malcolm Turnbull, in a big-mouth moment he now regrets, cited as one reason for challenging Mr Abbott’s prime ministership that his target had lost 30 Newspolls in a row against Labor’s Bill Shorten. It is now highly likely Mr Turnbull himself will hit that mark early next month.

And it will mean nothing.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull wrestled the Liberal Party leadership from former PM Tony Abbott after he lost 30 consecutive opinion polls. Picture: Liam Kidston.

Mr Abbott might be coaxed to front a microphone to make a comment and Liberal backbencher Eric Abetz might toss in an adenoidal admonition of Mr Turnbull, and Mr Abbott’s media cheerleaders will noisily commemorate the occasion.

And then … nothing.

There is no one waiting to pounce on Mr Turnbull’s leadership. Liberals have learned from their own experience and that of Labor that passing the leadership around like a party favour does not impress voters.

He will take the Coalition into the election scheduled for 2019, not least because a growing number of Federal Government MPs think he is on the brink of success.

If the Government’s big corporate tax cuts get Senate backing this week Mr Turnbull will not only look like a leader with an economic plan, he will be able to trim income tax in the coming Budget.

And in general terms that is what he promised just short of three years ago, rather than a mass of opinion poll triumphs.

On September 14, 2015, Mr Turnbull announced he would be challenging Mr Abbott in a statement to reporters which made up an 18 paragraph transcript.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten may take a political pot shot at the PM over his polling with Aussie voters. Picture: Michael Franchi

The reference to 30 polls was in paragraph 10.

More significant in transcript bulk and policy weight was Mr Turnbull’s reference to economic management.

“Ultimately, the Prime Minister has not been capable of providing the economic leadership our nation needs. He has not been capable of providing the economic confidence that business needs,” he said.

“Now, we are living as Australians in the most exciting time. The big economic changes that we’re living through here and around the world offer enormous challenges and enormous opportunities. And we need a different style of leadership.”

“We need a style of leadership that explains those challenges and opportunities ... and how to seize the opportunities. A style of leadership that respects the people’s intelligence, that explains these complex issues and then sets out the course of action we believe we should take and makes a case for it.”

Mr Turnbull then went on to politics making relatively brief references to policy-over-slogans, and of course the 30 polls.

The political trigintiphobia has been a wonderful marketing boost for Newspoll and The Australian which publishes it, but it disappears under the weight of a genuine policy debate. That’s the factor favouring Mr Turnbull.

Will Tony Abbott raise the issue or even mount a challenge if Mr Turnbull continues to lose in the polls? It’s unlikely. Picture Kym Smith