Turnbull is flawed but only he can win for the Libs

For now Peter Dutton and others are still standing on the outside looking in. Prime MInister Malcolm Turnbull the Coalition’s top dog for a reason. Picture: AAP

At the risk of driving the boutique band of Turnbull haters into a frenzy of the DTs (delconic tremens), which is as easy these days as finding a dishonest broker, the fact is that Malcolm Turnbull remains the Liberals’ best leadership option. Barring extraordinary events, he will lead the Coalition into the election, which he and his most senior colleagues rightly consider eminently winnable.

The Prime Minister is far from perfect. His judgment is sometimes up the spout, his political management often awry, and like most politicians (except Peter Be­attie, who made a career out of it), he is tardy when it comes to admitting mistakes. While it shouldn’t become a habit because that is indicative of chronic incompetence, admissions should be genuine and timely, if only to spare hardworking ministers such as Kelly O’Dwyer some heartache. Also no ifs, no buts, no trying to get off on technicalities such as it might have been better for the government politically if it had called the banks royal commission sooner. No, it would have been better for consumers, full stop.

Still, if the government had been sitting by doing nothing it would now be culpable as opposed to highly embarrassed, so actions and outcomes also count across the board, not just when it comes to banks, which received their first punishment in the last budget with a levy estimated to raise about $16 billion by the time the full company tax cuts become reality. If they ever do.

Despite the folly of nominating 30 lagging Newspolls as one reason for removing a prime minister, Turnbull has avoided a career-ending moment. He has consorted with royals but not been tempted to knight one. He’s broken no promises. In fact he remains obsessed about delivering them because credibility will be a key plank of his re-election strategy. So will economic management, where the mantra on jobs and growth has penetrated. So will national security. On a good day — and he does have them despite the bloodthirsty and meticulously co-ordinated campaign by the walking dead — he is better equipped for the job than anyone else on offer.

Even if he wasn’t, they are all dead meat if they change, regardless of what the polls say. Everybody knows that, including those who bullied their way out of office and think they can bully their way back in by abusing cabinet ministers such as Mathias Cormann and Josh Frydenberg, or by intimidating backbenchers with threats of “the base” deserting.

Their willingness to trash every principle or article of faith in order to exact revenge was made clear when Tony Abbott acolyte Kevin Andrews — who has long lectured Australians on the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman, insisted on a taxpayer-funded scheme to provide marriage counselling for couples in trouble, campaigned relentlessly against same-sex marriage — could not bring himself to publicly endorse Turnbull’s ban on ministers bonking their staff. Across the spectrum, from immigration to energy, hypocrisy does not even begin to describe their behaviour.

Sensible backbenchers could always make clear in the partyroom that it is the troublemakers who most threaten their seats, not Turnbull. Last year’s SSM plebiscite signalled where the majority of voters sits, including in Coalition seats. It’s not on the couch after dark watching Sky.

Nothing has changed materially on the leadership over the past year, except for some public positioning in case the proverbial bus hurtles over the cliff with Turnbull in it. While Julie Bishop is the most attractive alternative, regularly nominated as the people’s choice to replace him, she’s unlikely to muster the numbers in the partyroom. If Turnbull goes down, so will Bishop, so the musings of some of her so-called friends about Turnbull stepping aside if the budget flops to allow her in without a challenge are barmy. Turnbull’s praetorian guard, Cormann and Peter Dutton — no friends of Bishop — would regroup with a new objective, namely to make Dutton leader. They would find support among some of those who helped Turnbull get the job. Assuming Dutton holds his seat. If he does, it sets up a duel with Scott Morrison. The Treasurer has another chance to enhance his and the government’s economic credentials with the May 8 budget. Indeed, he might just squeeze in another. If Turnbull delays the election until the last possible moment he could foreshadow, say in the midyear economic and fiscal outlook, that the budget would be brought forward next year. It could act as the springboard into the campaign.

It would mean the electoral commission would have to allow a bit more leeway by extending the last possible date for the election by a week to May 25, providing enough time for the count to be completed, the writs returned and the new Senate in place by July 1. If not, a major economic statement, or mini-budget would serve as the platform, because you can bet not every bit of good news will be revealed this year.

Again, it would have to be extraordinary circumstances, not just hitting the front in a Newspoll, for an election to be held this year. That would be six months early and contravene Turnbull’s oft repeated promise to go full term.

His more immediate priority is to synchronise the economics and the politics on May 8. He cannot afford the sales pitch to get bogged down over whether the rest of the company tax cuts go ahead. The policy behind the company tax cuts is right, the politics even more abysmal now than before the extent of the greed, fraudulence and stupidity of financial institutions was exposed.

Cormann refuses to let them die. He remains hopeful he can get enough crossbenchers to pass them in the face of the cowardice and loss of moral authority of Australian companies and the doubts of colleagues about whether it is worth such a great expenditure of political capital. It is not just about the companies. Cormann regards them as essential to the government’s economic strategy.

If he fails they acquire zombie status: on the books, unlegislated, providing a potent attack line for Labor all the way through to the election. If he succeeds, Labor will still attack, however Shorten will have to find $35bn from elsewhere — or pledge to rescind them — to fund his spending. Even with the understandable bloodlust rescinding could prove difficult, especially if as well as providing a psychological fillip, the cuts translate into a material fillip for the economy in the lead-up to the election.

That would need businesses to wise up, to realise more jobs and higher wages for workers rather than themselves are the best way to rebuild trust, and that money they spend now on feel-good ads fooling nobody would be better spent re-acquainting themselves and staff ignorant of ethics and the law.