Muppets exit stage Left, and Right

Scott Morrison’s “Muppets”, whether they describe themselves as progressives or conservatives, have to wake up to themselves right now or wake up in opposition with Bill Shorten as prime minister.

Consumed with defending or attacking Malcolm Turnbull and duelling with each other over extremes of climate change policy, the Prime Minister’s colleagues are demanding he adopt contradictory and politically suicidal positions.

Morrison yesterday made it clear to Coalition MPs and senators that he believed lurching further to the Left than Turnbull’s position or further to the Right than Tony Abbott’s position is destructive.

As a “compromise” between the choices of the “progressive” Turnbull or the “conservative” Peter Dutton as leader and between the extremes of climate and energy policy, Morrison’s success depends on a disciplined compromise among his MPs.

Facing progressive calls to turn even more strongly towards cutting carbon emissions by funding more renewable energy and to send all refugees from Nauru to New Zealand, he rejected “hokey pokey politics” where you take turns putting your left foot or your right foot “in”.

Morrison is trying to fend off panic and knee-jerk reactions after the defeat in Wentworth, which is being used by both sides to push their position, and steer the Coalition into a sensible centre. The sensible centre has been the home of Australia’s most successful governments — Labor and Coalition — and represents the best chance of winning an election even at a time of disruption in traditional politics and third force activists. Labor has been selling itself as a stable, sensible alternative for months.

Attempts to shift an entire party platform to a narrow extreme at a time when minor parties and independents inhabit and control the fringes are self-defeating; multifaceted appeals have to be made to diverse electorates without throwing the centre off its axis. Nor can threats and shopping lists from independents, such as Cathy McGowan, Bob Katter or Kerryn Phelps, be allowed to dictate government policy.

Morrison unashamedly declared that the Coalition “will continue to be a strong centre-right government with strong centre-right parties focusing on the things that matter”.

The Liberal calls — matching those from Labor and the Greens — for Morrison to send all refugees from Nauru to New Zealand have been firmly rejected and supported with a reality check from Dutton in parliament pointing out that the US had refused to take 13 asylum-seekers from Nauru because they were a national security risk.

Apart from a single act of compassion destroying years of tough achievements in heading off people-smugglers, Dutton asked the obvious question as to whether New Zealand would accept security risks.

On climate change and energy, Morrison also made it clear he was not going to give priority to cutting emissions over providing more reliable, lower cost energy to households.