Implosion

Tuesday, 10 February 2015    

I believe the team of Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard is the best leadership team for the Liberal Party and therefore part of the best leadership team of the Coalition for the country.

Kevin Andrews nails it

Consider this. In 1971, when Gorton was challenged for the leadership, Fraser had resigned as Defence Minister and openly attacked Gorton on the floor of the House as “not fit” for the PM’s office. The result was a leadership vote, a tie and Gorton resigning. In 1981, Fraser was the target this time with Peacock resigning as IR Minister over Fraser’s industrial relations policy and (something we’re not supposed to talk about these days) his refusal to withdraw recognition from Pol Pot. Peacock again used the floor of the House to openly attack Fraser in a speech accusing him of eroding the Cabinet system. The result was almost a year of open hostilities, finally ending when Fraser called a leadership vote and saw Peacock off.

Then we had what was supposed to be the third challenge to a sitting Liberal PM yesterday. This time there was no ministerial resignations, no open attack on the Prime Minister from the floor of the House, in fact no challenge at all. Nothing. Not a peep. The only thing that came close to a challenge was Lucy’s wry smile as Turnbull made his “Captain’s call” jibe, which for the media was considered enough of a challenge to allow us all to settle back and pretend it was business (sort of) as usual.

Having come away with a third of the party voting no confidence in the Prime Minister, Abbott is seen as mortally wounded and Turnbull is now appearing like a master tactician for doing nothing – as opposed to all the other silly billies of recorded political history who actually made a fuss.

In reality, however, Turnbull was constrained from making an open challenge by exactly the same factors that are causing problems for Abbott right now. Turnbull’s lack of challenge suggests he has no solution either.

With Labor’s instability having now spread to the Liberals, it is prompting a lot of thoughtful pieces about how the electorate is more fickle, volatile, etc. added with some stuff about 24-hour news cycles and social media to make it seem terribly new thinking.

Most of it’s rubbish. The issue’s not with the electorate. It wasn’t NT voters who decided to dump a Chief Minster one day and reinstate him the next. Any significant changes in the electorate’s relationship with politics happened years ago, with the erosion of organised labour’s ties with the ALP. And even that wasn’t that big a deal as far as the electorate is concerned.

But it is as far as the political system is concerned, given that’s what it was based on. And it’s the inability to avoid this any longer that is the real source of the political crisis going on today. The rise and fall of Rudd was a major catalyst for the parties being forced to grapple with their reason for existence, first the Liberals, and later Labor. For Labor, the Rudd years showed that this grappling centred on the role of unions and the power brokers in the ALP now that they have lost their social relevance.

But for the Liberals this grappling with what they’re about is likely to be more difficult because the problem is almost purely political. As Norman Abjorensen summed it up nicely in a piece last year, the Liberals have really only ever existed to oppose another political party. It means that while Labor sees its problems as an institutional one of unions having too much power relative to their diminished social role (or unions going out to campaign to showing that they should have that power), for the Liberals it is presented as almost wholly a political problem both ideological and organisationally. How difficult this makes it for the Liberals to understand what is going on was evident yesterday.

Abbott took over the party leadership when the dilemma between the party’s political agenda and its lack of electoral appeal had blown wide open. His election was a sign that the party was willing to forfeit the next election to maintain its brand. What this meant for a party that whose whole purpose was gaining power to stop Labor was obscured as the turmoil in Labor saw it kow-towing to the Liberals’ agenda and making it seem electorally relevant.

Gillard and Rudd Mark II made Abbott into a credible opposition leader and gave him a cover that was removed when he took office. This explains why such a supposedly brilliant opposition leader that can apparently tap into the electorate, can so singularly fail to do so once in government. In government Abbott did all the things that both Labor and the Liberals thought were supposed to work: stop the boats, make “economically responsible” cuts, talk up terrorism, send troops off, strut around world forums – all things that were supposed to work for Howard – but none of them did for Abbott.

It would have been thought that the failure of Gillard and Rudd Mark II, having done similar, would have given some warning signs. But it’s clear yesterday that the way that the Liberals understand the failure of Labor is not the policies, but the instability. This is despite the only time Abbott came under pressure and the Coalition lost its lead in the last two years of Labor was when it went through its worst period of instability on the return of Rudd.

The irony is that in balancing two sides of the party, it has created an unstable situation for Abbott. He really has no use for either side of the party, neither a right that is electorally unviable, or a left that is indistinguishable from Labor – hence the detachment from the party and an autocratic style that emulates Rudd with a similar relationship to his party.

But neither do either side of the party really have any use for Abbott. As Chris Berg noted, what has been forgotten is that this instability was not started by Turnbull but by those that would normally most oppose him taking the leadership, the conservative columnists and climate change sceptics like Jensen and Simpkins, disappointed with his failure to implement their agenda. As someone who came in to protect the brand, Abbott was now under pressure for failure to do so.

This points to not only the hollowness of support for Abbott, but the difficulty of Turnbull challenging him. If Turnbull had an electorally winning platform, he would antagonise the right even more than he has up to now. If he gave into the right, it would undermine the one attribute he had, his popularity. Turnbull’s waiting until he is drafted really comes from him having no other choice.

It’s natural that, given all this, Abbott’s practically sole concern is to rebuild his base in the party. Hence the only really new things he had to say yesterday were all about his relationship to the party and how he can rebuild his support. As to what to do about the dire standing with the electorate, well there’s nothing really he can do.

So what next? It would be tempting to wonder if the right, having instigated this instability, then suddenly going quiet, with those like Howard and Bernardi appearing only at the last minute, had shifted its priority from replacing Abbott to just stopping Turnbull in his tracks. The talk was that Morrison, probably their preferred choice, was not yet experienced enough in senior portfolios to take over. This sounds phoney, probably the numbers weren’t there yet. If so, it would suggest that Turnbull might have just missed the best chance he had to regain the leadership.

That woozy, sinking feeling

Monday, 2 February 2015    

Queensland does it again. When it’s not sending political figures to Canberra to shake up the major parties, it sends electoral disasters to do much the same.

Perhaps it’s best to start with the historical context – just to show there isn’t any. Read more …

Decay

Friday, 30 January 2015    

David Rowe, AFR

Conviction politicians hard to find anywhere. Australia’s Tony Abbott a rare exception. Opponent Rudd all over the place convincing nobody.

R Murdoch scribbling on a wall, 19 August 2013

Abbott again. Tough to write, but if he won’t replace top aide Peta Credlin she must do her patriotic duty and resign.
More

Tagged R Murdoch 18 months later

You can imagine the thinking. “That Honours system I introduced is in danger of being ridiculed. What it needs is gravitas. I know!” And short of Elizabeth tapping herself on the shoulder, who better to do it than the Duke of Edinburgh, Baron of Greenwich, Earl of Merioneth etc. etc. etc. Read more …

Home front – an update

Wednesday, 24 December 2014    

We don’t blame the Pope for the IRA, and we don’t blame the Catholics living next door for the folly of some people, the folly and madness of some people who may claim a Christian motivation. And I think we need to be similarly carefully and cautious in these other areas.

T Abbott 17 December 2014

She might not even be Muslim or she could have just been warm!

Rachel Jacobs, instigator of #illridewithyou

If there was a sense that the political message went a bit adrift after the Martin Place siege, it was because the respective narratives both the left and the right were comfortably trotting along with over the last few months fell apart in the face of reality last week. Read more …

Positioning

Thursday, 11 December 2014    

David Rowe, AFR

It’s all looking so eerily familiar. Read more …

Whitlam

Wednesday, 22 October 2014    

In 1972, the AWU, one of Australia’s largest union, then and now, officially abandoned its commitment to the White Australia Policy. If some find it surprising that the glorious AWU left its distinctly inglorious past, er, rather late, it perhaps shows how much we now view the past through the prism of the political settlement that followed, a political settlement that Whitlam had a leading role in making, but at the time of his death, is now unravelling. Read more …

Home front

Thursday, 28 August 2014    

So I imagine that from time to time they would want a different captain but nevertheless, that’s what he said, that we’re all part of Team Australia and you’re our captain.

Captain Australia, 20 August 2014

A curious obliviousness has descended over the political scene and its commentary to the escalation of tensions over Iraq. Partly it comes from the desperation of a government thinking that it will solve its significant political problems. Partly it comes from the opposition’s fear it will as well, on top of the normal shutdown it has over anything to do with national security, especially under its current leader.

But it’s also to do with the complications behind the current escalation that neither side wants to see. Read more …

Chaos

Monday, 11 August 2014    

David Rowe: AFR

What this government is trying to do is trying to stop Australian Muslims travelling overseas to murder other Muslims. They’re going to Iraq, they’re going to Syria. There are Sunnis targeting Shiites. This is not an anti-Muslim attitude; this is an attitude that’s trying to save the lives of other Muslims from being attacked by Australian Muslims. Read more …

Disaster politics

Thursday, 31 July 2014    

We’ve got a situation where Tony Abbott’s become the strongest leader in the world on this issue.

Gerard Henderson

Right now there could well be remains exposed to the European summer, exposed to the ravages of heat and animals.

Tony Abbott

As a prime minister of a country, how does a tragedy like this affect you at a personal level?

Fran Kelly

Context is all.

The last few weeks have reminded that in recent years something rather unpleasant has entered politics, and the commentary that surrounds it. It is not only unpleasant to watch but has caused politicians to fumble on sensitive issues and commentators to completely mis-read the impact on the electorate at home. Read more …

The confusions of anti-politics

Tuesday, 15 July 2014    

Political sophisticate meets naïve political rube, from the US.

I’m determined to get on with governing

T Abbott 11 July 2014

I’m determined to get on with the job of governing,

J Gillard 31 January 2013

The Labor Party was formed to represent the workers, the Liberals to represent business, the Nationals to represent people in rural and regional Australia. But Palmer United was formed simply out of hatred for Campbell Newman.

Senior Coalition member talking to Laurie Oakes

We have got situation normal.

T Abbott

If this is situation normal, why doesn’t it feel like it?

As commentators have said, dealing with tricky players in the Palmer United Party isn’t new. Steve Fielding and Nick Xenophon weren’t exactly a barrel of laughs for the Rudd government either. Even the Australian Democrats on their high horse could give Howard headaches.

The difference is not so much Palmer, but the weak position of the government that is negotiating with him. Read more …