Three months to decide Turnbull’s fate

MMalcolm’s Turnbull future now rests on two issues — same-sex marriage and the nation’s energy crisis. Picture: AAP/iStock

We’ll know by Christmas whether Malcolm Turnbull’s Prime Ministership is salvageable or whether he’s a Dead Man Walking.

The next three months will decide the fate of Mr Turnbull.

His future now rests on two issues — same-sex marriage and the nation’s energy crisis.

On same sex marriage, the best outcome for the Prime Minister is a “yes” vote in the postal survey, the results of which are due on November 15.

A “Yes” vote will indicate broad support for a change to the Marriage Act.

It will not be scientific — it is a voluntary survey, with none of the compulsion of a federal election.

• Australian Politics Live: SSM, energy dominate parliament

The priority for both the “Yes” and “No” campaigns will be to convince people to fill in the survey and then return it.

A “Yes” vote will mean that there is no risk to Turnbull overseeing the introduction of a bill into Parliament — resistance from the Right of his party to a change to the Marriage Act will have been neutralised.

Turnbull then will, undoubtedly, seek to bask in the flow of a victory — and he would almost certainly get a political lift as allowing same-sex marriage is something with which the Prime Minister is known to agree.

While initially suggesting he would not campaign for the “Yes” side, Mr Turnbull is now becoming more engaged in that cause.

It is no coincidence that his bitter rival Tony Abbott is one of the leaders of the “No” campaign.

The other issue that holds the fate of the Prime Minister is the crisis in power.

Extraordinarily, for a country with so much wealth and so many natural resources, Australia faces a summer where we cannot be guaranteed that our lights will go on.

The complete lack of a coherent energy policy has been 20 years or so in the making.

Neither major party is blame free — neither has shown real leadership in making sure that Australia had a reliable bank of power as it, gradually, begins to increase the use of renewable energy.

But Mr Turnbull is now in the demeaning situation of having to micromanage individual power stations to try to keep the lights on.

The Prime Minister did not need to wait for last week’s warning from the Australian Energy Market Operator to realise the full extent of the crisis.

He needed only to read an extraordinary series of articles earlier this year on this website by the legendary financial commentator Robert Gottliebsen.

In one article, Gottliebsen warned: “The national emergency set to be created by the Australian power and energy crisis is only just becoming apparent. It is the most serious peacetime issue this country has faced since the depression. The Commonwealth government has started to tackle gas but they have yet to take action on electricity.”

In another he wrote: “All businesses and households in Victoria, NSW and South Australia need to seriously consider investing substantial sums in diesel generators, batteries or other sources of emergency power. Banks need to be ready to fund the massive investment required during the next nine months.

“It is now absolutely clear that each of the state governments have not invested in sufficient emergency power to back their wind and solar installations and now have a network of wires that is unsuitable for the power generation grid they have established.

“And the Commonwealth promises a partial solution in two or three years via the Snowy but has washed its hands of the looming disaster next summer.

“That means that businesses and residents who need power in hot summer days are on their own. Prepare for massive food rotting and equipment (including computer) disruption for those who did not recognise the extent of the destruction of power security by three state governments.”

Massive food rotting. Businesses and residents who need power on hot summer days being on their own.

These words were remarkable in Australia in 2017 — unfortunately, Gottliebsen’s warning appears to be bearing fruit, as rotten as that fruit might become when the refrigerator goes off.

The current reality of the Prime Minister trying to manage the continuation of one power plant — AGL’s Liddell coal-fired plant in NSW — is absurd.

Surely, he can depute to his Environment Minister, Josh Frydenberg, or to key officials negotiations to keep the plant open for another five years.

What Turnbull needs to be doing as our leader is to develop a clear, transparent energy policy which he can deliver his government behind.

Only a credible plan will encourage investors in Australia to resume spending on energy.

Currently, it’s as if there’s a strike of capital — nobody wants to invest in anything new because the rules seem to be changing by the day.

The government appears to be in a state of chaos on energy policy — because it is.

More generally, the opinion polls continue to slowly bury Malcolm Turnbull — each month another shovel full of soil is dug out of his political grave.

He did, of course, set opinion polls as the benchmark for his coup against Tony Abbott.

There is one glimmer of hope for Malcolm Turnbull.

In almost every poll, he rates significantly above Bill Shorten as preferred Prime Minister.

Nonetheless, the government faces being swept decisively from power on current trends.

In the next twelve weeks, we’ll know the result of the same-sex marriage survey and whether the national government can come up with an energy policy.

And when we know these, we’ll also know whether Malcolm Turnbull will be Prime Minister come Australia Day next year.