Just as Barnett benefited from the disarray in the ALP and the backlash against the Gillard government in 2013, now he has the baggage of his Canberra colleagues replaying a similar script.
The overwhelming negativity of Facebook’s newsfeed did little to assuage my growing suspicion that the 21st century’s great social media experiment is doomed to be remembered as a failure.
With the gutting and offshoring of Western industrial capitalism, the class order has been reversed. Knowledge production is at the centre of our economy and culture, and the industrial working class are, by contrast, multiply diminished.
Political attacks often thrill partisans but appear puerile to innocent bystanders. They reinforce the impression that the politicians are more interested in themselves than voters’ concerns.
Rather than comprehending that the alliance aims for Australia to be independent, commentary assumes we are inescapably reliant upon the US for our security.
One senior Liberal doubts whether Turnbull would hang around to lead the government to a defeat. And most fear eventual defeat is more likely than not.
Fraser hypothesised that a new political force could emerge out of the ashes of the two major parties ... Its policies would be evidence-based and it would emphasise finding solutions to “wicked problems”.
When asked why he wouldn’t reveal how much he had given, Turnbull’s answer was as opaque as it was shifty. On Channel Nine, Laurie Oakes accused him of ‘looking like a hypocrite’.
It is 16 months since Turnbull became prime minister. In that time, he hasn’t achieved gravitas, has not built authority, and has so far failed to prosecute a substantial political or policy argument of any kind.
It is a sorry fact that the day on which we celebrate our story, and our national heroes, is one that in part commemorates the exclusion of some of us, including other great heroes, from that story.
Turnbull isn’t convincing on the so-called bread-and-butter issues. And there is growing pessimism that it is already too late for him to turn that around.
