Turnbull disintegration rivals Whitlam’s in 1975

PM Malcolm Turnbull and Treasurer Scott Morrison this week. Picture: Kym Smith

The good ship SS Turnbull has foundered and is sinking fast. The lifeboats are chock-a-block with cabinet ministers, junior ministers and assistant ministers.

No government has disintegrated so completely since the last days of the Whitlam administration. It is hard to forget the scandals of Jim Cairns, Rex Connor and their ilk. Those were the days when a Pakistani spiv by the name of Tirath Khemlani was to be paid millions of dollars in “consultancy fees” for organising a $2 billion loan from the most dubious of sources. Cairns, as treasurer, simply added up all that the ministries were asking for and announced the result of that basic maths as the budget of Australia.

On Richo on Wednesday night on Sky News, I showed all the changes the national energy guarantee underwent over a period of just six days. Clearly Malcolm Turnbull faced the prospect of as many as 12 MPs crossing the floor to vote it down.

It is incredibly rare for a prime minister to have a first-timer stride past him to announce he could not follow the PM. The cracks became chasms as minister after minister offered to resign.

The Prime Minister managed to persuade these ministers — Steven Ciobo, Angus Taylor, Greg Hunt, Alan Tudge, Michael Keenan and others — to stay with him.

All eight of them walked up to the dispatch box and swore to remain loyal to their boss. It was eerie. It was unbelievable — it was rubbish. They all lied, as the lure of the big white car and the chauffeur proved too hard to resist.

What do Australians think of these people now? That pollies are in it only for themselves and don’t give a rat’s about their party or their government, or indeed the people. It was a pathetic display of venality

When it emerged overnight that Mathias Cormann had definitely shifted sides and was supporting Peter Dutton, it became clear the Turnbull goose was well and truly cooked. Cormann was a key figure. He was one of the few Liberals who could command the support of a few of his colleagues.

The Dutton camp in fact had a poor day yesterday.

Dutton stuffed up big time when he took to announcing policy on the run. First, he declared he would take the GST off energy bills. It sounded like easy populism, as Dutton no doubt intended.

It turned out to be terrible economics, costing billions in the first term. He sounded ill prepared to take on the hardest job in Australia. He made it even worse by then claiming he would force the states to pay for it. He had Buckley’s chance of doing that, and someone seeking this nation’s prime ministership should have done much better in his first foray into different policy areas.

After that blunder, plus the doubt that will continue to hang over Dutton’s eligibility to sit in parliament, you would have been entitled to believe his caucus colleagues would move away from him.

Silly claims about 8pm on Wednesday night that the Dutton camp already had 43 signatures on a petition requesting a partyroom meeting looked desperate when the petition failed to materialise. If there really had been such a document signed by 43 Liberal Party MPs, the meeting would have been held and the leadership contest would have been run and won.

Despite all this, the momentum Dutton had created was seemingly unstoppable. At the time of writing, the Dutton forces claim to have 37 signatures on their petition and are absolutely confident of getting the 43 necessary to convince Turnbull to call a party meeting for midday today.

The Liberal caucus rules leave open the question of how many signatures are needed on the petition, but you would have thought that something like 39 or 40 would be enough. The PM, though, is playing hardball. Given that he or chief government whip Nola Marino — a staunch Turnbull supporter — are the only ones who can call the meeting, the Prime Minister can get away with making the hurdle as high as possible.

Turnbull also has insisted that he and his colleagues should be able to see the Solicitor-General’s opinion on Dutton’s eligibility to sit in parliament. I can’t fault Turnbull’s logic on that because if there is even a remote chance that he could be found ineligible, there is a risk that everything Dutton did as PM could be declared invalid.

Enormous pressure is being placed on the Solicitor-General to come up with an opinion on such a complex matter in less than 24 hours. In any event, as Turnbull found to his great embarrassment, it is hard trying to predict what the High Court might find in proceedings where the eligibility of politicians is being decided.

Now Julie Bishop, at five minutes to midnight, has declared she is running. Her entry into the field just about ensures that Dutton will be the victor. Scott Morrison’s chances dived the moment Bishop announced her intention, signalling a split among the moderate forces. Once again there is evidence of a dramatic failure of political management.

A Turnbull supporter texted me on Wednesday night because I had dared to mention that the Dutton camp was suggesting it already had 43 votes on a petition. I was informed I was being “played like a violin”. Tensions rise during leadership contests. Sometimes lifelong friendships break down. Ill will hangs in the air.

The question to be answered after today will be: How has the party managed to put a Band-Aid over such deep wounds? How will the Liberals put aside the terrible animosities that now divide them? How do they react to a new leader against whom a third of the caucus bears a grudge? How do they manage a House of Representatives when they lose their majority of one when Turnbull resigns as the member for Wentworth? How do you keep up the morale and the fighting spirit of his MPs, senators, party members and grassroots supporters? Will the rank and file who deserted under Turnbull return to the fold under a new prime minister?

The final question, indeed the most important question, is: How will voters respond to a party racked by division, desperately short on successes and led by a largely unknown (outside Queensland) attack dog who is only now, after so many years in parliament, trying to soften his image? Will it be too little, too late?

This is a week that does not seem to want to come to an end. The government can only slash its wrists so many times before it bleeds out. The end is nigh.