Turnbull is dreaming — this is far from business as usual

The risks are multiplying for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

The Turnbull government faces a deepening crisis. It has lost control of the political, near-term parliamentary and media agenda. It faces the fear of more MPs being caught in the dual citizenship ­crisis. The risk is a downward spiral raising the question of whether conservative politics cracks under such relentless pressure.

The truth is now apparent — the High Court did not resolve the politics of dual citizenship. It could never do that. Its job was to settle the constitutional interpretation and it achieved that with brutal clarity. It applied that ­interpretation to the cases of the seven MPs before disqualifying five of them.

The issue now is whether there are other undisclosed MPs who are dual citizens. The threat to the Turnbull government is more by-elections if other Coalition MPs are revealed to be in breach of section 44 of the Constitution. This could raise the issue not just of Turnbull government stability, not just of its majority position, but even of its survival.

The revelation that the Senate president and Liberal, Stephen Parry, now believes he is a dual citizen provokes the inevitable question as to how many other MPs, Coalition or Labor, might be in a similar position.

The High Court decision last Friday is unequivocal. Any MP with foreign citizenship is ineligible and must resign if exposed. If Parry is confirmed as a British citizen — and that will be determined within days — then he will need to resign as Senate president and ­resign from the Senate.

He is the first Liberal to be caught in the dual citizenship trap. Parry was responsible in his statement yesterday saying that, if confirmed, he will not await any referral to the High Court but will act himself. His story is familiar: his late father was born in Britain and Parry himself was born in Burnie, Tasmania. He would be a foreign citizen by descent.

This revelation will intensify pressure for an audit of all MPs. When quizzed on Sky’s Sunday Agenda program three days ago, Attorney-General George Brandis said he had “no reason” to ­believe any other MPs were dual citizens. This position has been contradicted by the Parry revelation. Yet Brandis stuck by the “no reason” formula yes­terday — proof of the extreme sensitivity of the issue. It is not clear how any such audit would work.

Constitutional expert George Williams has warned about further MPs being ineligible and the need for an audit. Any re-escalation of the dual citizenship issue is filled with unpredictable risks for the Turnbull government — compounded by the problem that it cannot control these events. Think of a person stumbling in a dark room not knowing what mishap might befall them.

The Parry factor re-creates the optics of chaos. Where will it end? Nobody knows. Expect the media to investigate other MPs. Labor knows that if it can expose a marginal-seat Coalition MP then Turnbull’s majority government is in jeopardy. Turnbull’s ­belief on Friday afternoon after the High Court decision that he could ­return to business as usual is shattered.

This latest instability accentuates a situation riddled with instabilities. The challenge for Turnbull is obvious — it is about discipline, survival and holding his government together. There must be an emerging doubt over whether Turnbull can achieve his tactical objective of a full-term parliament, thereby deferring the election as long as possible.

The dangers are multiple. They include the risk of Coalition defections in the coming parliament over, for example, the royal commission on banks; a Queensland state election result with the potential to cause havoc in conservative ranks; and growing ­internal divisions fanned by diminished prime ministerial auth­ority that will compromise man­agement of issues from energy policy negotiations to settling the same-sex marriage legislation.

Of course, there is one piece of good news for the government. A re-energised Barnaby Joyce — having been responsible for igniting the dual citizenship crisis within the government — is now a strong prospect to win the New England by-election and restore the parliamentary status quo.

Yet Labor and the government’s opponents are dictating a political agenda driven by chronic government blunders, the re-­energised citizenship issue, doubts about the legality of Joyce’s ministerial decisions and Coalition trauma. The cold reality is that Turnbull cannot win any policy kudos unless he can secure political stability — and that seems to be diminishing. This is the essence of his dilemma.

There are now omens of media-driven speculation about the leadership, the useless reflex that accompanies a government whose lost momentum is measured in dismal opinion polls. There is no scenario for the Liberals changing leaders and emerging stronger — that story ends in a broken, more divided, more discredited party burdened with two abandoned prime ministers.

Beware the Queensland election. Queensland, the nominal powerhouse of the Coalition where it holds 21 out of 30 seats, is the epicentre of the One Nation-driven schism where the Hanson party has steadily polled 14-16 per cent at federal level and where the standing of the Turnbull government has plummeted in regional centres and seats it now holds.

The Queensland election poses three ugly possibilities for conservative politics: a victory for a weak Labor government that ­reveals, yet again, the superiority of Labor’s political machine and the resources of progressive politics; the lethal impact of One ­Nation as it steals conservative votes and operates as a net voting transfer vehicle from Coalition to Labor; and the structural weakness of conservative politics across the nation in terms of personnel, policy and machinery.

It is possible One Nation may falter as its vote erodes in the campaign. The suspicion, however, is that a flawed conservative opposition may be ­unable to ­defeat a mediocre ALP government.

This is the latest test of the slick ALP model — a “safe hands”, cautious leader in Annastacia Palaszczuk, a big-spending agenda, expansion of public sector jobs, trade union funding and campaign workers, repudiation of pro-market reforms and rejection of asset sales, the populist pitch, ­renewable energy ideology and a tough negative campaign that damages the conservative leader, Tim Nicholls.

Unless the Turnbull government performs strongly in Queensland at the next election it is doomed. Incredibly, there has been no Queensland political strategy from Turnbull; morale among federal Queensland MPs is low; and the Turnbull profile is a problem in the state’s regional seats that are pivotal.

The recent Newspoll pointing to the November 25 state election showed a Liberal National Party primary vote sunk at 34 per cent. The latest three monthly Newspoll federal surveys showed a LNP primary vote at 33 per cent for the Turnbull government — compared with 43 per cent at last year’s federal election. You can smell the vulnerability.

Bill Shorten understands the game. He has been campaigning consistently in regional Queensland where there are a host of shaky government MPs.

Newspoll shows a frightening slump in Turnbull government standing in two dimensions. First, across regional Australia where its primary vote outside the capital cities has collapsed from 44 per cent at last year’s election to 34 per cent as measured by the latest three monthly Newspolls. And second, its primary vote among voters aged 50 years and over has crashed from 50 per cent to 40 per cent since last year’s poll.

In summary, Turnbull’s chief vulnerability is among conservative voters, aged over 50 and living in the regions. This is a demographic dilemma to compound his political dilemmas.

The LNP faces a double agony with One Nation at this state poll. The Hanson party may cost it the election. But if Palaszczuk cannot get the numbers then the LNP must have the skill to manage One Nation and take office. Nicholls has got this right — no ­coalition with One Nation and no One Nation ministers. The Hanson party will have nowhere else to go on the issue of confidence since it cannot back Labor.