News site of the year

Comment
  1. Home
  2. Comment
  3. View from the Street
COMMENT

You have to feel sorry for Malcolm Turnbull and his hijacked week

How's that attempt to hit reset on the new year looking, Malc?

Andrew P Street

You have to feel sympathy for the Prime Minister.

Wednesday's appearance at the National Press Club was meant to be his big moment to boldly lay out the government's agenda for 2017 and silence his critics inside and outside of his party room. 

Up Next

Individual handshake for each student

Video duration
01:00

More World News Videos

null
Video duration
02:21

Worst call by far: Trump
Video duration
01:00

Individual handshake for each student
null
Video duration
01:58

Our PM has a new name
null
Video duration
01:29

Twitter used against Trump
null
Video duration
00:52

Trump defends 'tough' phone call with ...
null
Video duration
01:00

Uber boss quits Trump advisory group
null
Video duration
01:21

Nonprofits reject govt. grants because of ...
More videos

Worst call by far: Trump

The US President has taken to Twitter, this time revealing his thoughts on Australia's refugee deal as PM Malcolm Turnbull assures us, the agreement is still in play. Courtesy 2GB.

Instead he was responding to unflattering questions, such as whether he and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop shrewdly carved out an exception from the US's current immigration freeze for Australians (short answer: nope, the US is extending us the same deal it does for other countries).

More pointedly, there was the question of whether the United States will, as Turnbull had stated earlier in the week, definitely accept over a thousand refugees from Manus Island and Nauru in spite of said freeze. Short answer: the White House sure doesn't seem to think so. Indeed, Turnbull's relationship with Trump is even less convivial than it appears.

Indeed, if the report about Turnbull's call with Trump is accurate, it sounds almost as though Trump was "negging" the PM like a particularly low-rent pick up artist – describing the refugee deal as Australia's attempts to export the "next Boston bombers", boasting about his election victory and abruptly ending the call early. Stay mean, keep 'em keen. 

This story could be Turnbull's own let's-knight-Prince-Philip moment, the point of no return where an already unpopular leader started looking like an actual joke. A leader can endure being disliked; few have survived becoming a figure of outright ridicule.

Advertisement

And then there was the awkward question of why Turnbull's name didn't appear on the list of donors to the Liberal Party election campaign last year, despite having been known to have kicked in over a million dollars – a question which he sidestepped by insisting it didn't require reporting until 2018.

And then, having realised that this was a PR wound that wasn't going to heal, he came clean on that night's edition of the ABC's 7.30 and confirmed what everyone already knew: that he and his wife Lucy made a mighty personal donation donated to the Liberal Party in the dying days of their election campaign. $1.75 million, to be precise. 

"In the course of this current financial year, which is why it hasn't been disclosed on the AEC, I contributed $1.75 million," Mr Turnbull said of the donation. "I've always been prepared to put my money where my mouth is. I put my money into ensuring we didn't have a Labor government."

Now, a number of commentators – including, predictably, Labor leader Bill Shorten – have accused the PM of essentially buying his own job. But this is unfair because Turnbull's contribution of $1.75 million, mainly for last minute election advertising, is entirely consistent with his zeal for promoting Jobs and Growth – or at least, the very particular interpretation which the Coalition seem to apply to other big ticket projects. 

It's fair to say that the election was always going to be close – the polls consistently pegged the two major parties at 50-50 in two party preferred terms.

So while there are currently 106 Coalition MPs and senators, we can surmise that most of them would have kept their jobs regardless – even thought they'd have received a pay cut by going into opposition. 

So let's assume that the extra ads maybe determined five seats overall – the marginal Queensland lower house seats of Flynn, Forde and Capricornia, which were the last electorates to squeak over the line for the Coalition, and a senator each in Victoria and Queensland.

That works out to an investment of $350,000 for each job protected. Bargain!

Now, that might seem an insane amount to ensure that the parliament is not denied the inspirational presence of, say, Forde MP Bert van Manen, whose decade in federal parliament has been so storied and dynamic that his Wikipedia entry barely tops 100 words. 

However, it's half the return on investment the Turnbull government are contemplating at the moment via a potential billion dollar loan to Indian mining conglomerate Adani for the Galilee Mine in Queensland for a project which Adani themselves calculated as employing a total of 1464 people.

That works out at the public coughing up just over $683,000 for each job.

This, however, is a positive bargain when you look at the $50 billion which was reported last April as the investment involved in building 12 new submarines (mainly) in Port Adelaide.

This spend supposedly guarantees a total of 2800 positions overall, 1700 in Adelaide. And that works out at an eye-watering $17,857,142 per job. 

In other words, Turnbull's personal $1.75 million investment in the jobs and growth of his own party is actually among the most bang-for-the-buck employment-stimulating spends for which he's been responsible. 

But also it's a strategic move. Let's not forget what awaits Malcolm next week on the floor of Parliament. 

There will be questions regarding the resignation of health minister and numerology enthusiast Sussan Ley over her use of expenses.

There will be questions asked about the ongoing shambles of the already-under-investigation Centrelink debt recovery program.

There will be mockery around the government raising of the federal debt ceiling yet again, the latest hiccup in the ongoing gastric discomfort of Scott Morrison's 500 days as treasurer.

And the other shoe is yet to drop with regards the tangled questions of why exactly attorney general George Brandis allegedly sought to give the WA state Liberal government of Colin Barnett priority over Australian taxpayers as a creditor in the collapse of the Bell Group, at least until the now-resigned solicitor general Justin Gleeson stepped in. 

So with all these embarrassments casting a less than flattering light on the party's leadership, you can understand why Turnbull would figure that right now would be a good time to talk hard numbers. 

Nothing encourages loyalty like reminding one's colleagues that they only have their job because the leader paid for it. 

80 comments