Malcolm Turnbull has politics and political numbers on his mind, but in doing so is in the paradoxical position of following the man most involved in chasing him. If he were truly confident of his leadership, he would set the pace, and the destination, rather than continually look behind at his pursuers and try to anticipate their tactics.
The politics and numbers are about this weekend's Newspoll. Turnbull hopes for a fillip now that it's been discovered that he's prepared to use the language of inclusion and exclusion, and fear of foreigners, to boost his fading stocks. But he's at least as focused on some inevitable collision with Tony Abbott, and, possibly separately, the risk of a challenge or vote of no confidence in the Liberal party room.
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Turnbull grilled over 'Australian values'
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull defends his announcement on a tougher citizenship regime in a testy and cheeky interview with ABC's Leigh Sales.
And, just in case, he thinks his tactics provide his best chance for an election, possibly an early one based on the government's problems with the Senate and/or the need to clear the air on great matters of state, such as power, citizenship and the character of Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. Theresa May has called an early election in Britain, claiming she needs a mandate to handle the Brexit negotiations. This might serve as a precedent for a visit to Yarralumla, but for one thing: May wants an election because the opinion polls suggest she should win in a canter. By contrast, only extraordinary bad management or bad luck for Shorten would give Turnbull a chance in any contest over the next 12 months.
Neither are much in evidence at the moment, if only because of the damage Turnbull is doing to himself as he faces and tries to deal with increasing indifference and developing antipathy from the electorate, and the despair and contempt of his own party. The Turnbull camp is acting as if its primary political missions involve: heading off any sort of Hansonite revolt, particularly ones based on economic or emotional nationalism; squaring conservatives by being more palatable (in his impotence) than any potential true-blue conservative; and winning the regular battle of the opinion polls.
![Missing in action: the energetic, inspiring Malcolm Turnbull who challenged Tony Abbott in September 2015.](/web/20170428194630im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/j/m/e/x/r/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gvpaj4.png/1492783417118.jpg)
Almost entirely gone is any sense of defining serious national economic or social goals, road maps and timetables for their achievement, coherent policy development and frameworks for coping with defence and international issues, or much in the way of a story explaining what Turnbull is doing and why. A daily line-up of announcables masquerading as vision is proving to be as successful, enduring and convincing as similar efforts by Julia Gillard in her last days.
Turnbull's background, whether as lawyer or businessman, has shown him to be a capable and formidable advocate. He is as able as any in the arts of organising the convenient facts, finding rationalisations and explanations for grand policies without pedigree. There's even the pretence of exasperation at the cynicism of those watching his feet peddling furiously beneath the water's surface.
Towards the end of the week, Turnbull almost sounded as if he had convinced himself that his latest desperate ploy to confect some sense of emergency about the need for loyalty oaths, citizenship tests and declarations of Australian "values" was statesmanlike. No doubt many Australians will agree, at least up until they come to understand that the "values" the government will seek to impose will be those of Peter Dutton, as interpreted by Immigration Department head Mike Pezzulo and enforced by Roman Quaedvlieg and his paramilitary blackshirts, still eager to require foreign-looking people to prove their right of residence, if strangely reluctant to enforce the wages guarantees by which sponsors were able to import them.
The public's experience of Abbott in government ought to be enough to fill anyone with the deepest dread of any sort of his political resurrection. Yet even his sternest critics might admit that his premiership involved some attempt to impose his personality and philosophy on government. Abbott's instinct might have been awful, sometimes even despicable, but it mostly reflected his character, nature, disposition and temperament. The public might now recognise that it should have appreciated Abbott's complete unsuitability long before he was deposed, but could still admit his authenticity, a certain charisma and dedication to a task.
The tragedy of Turnbull is that words like authenticity, charisma, temperament and focus had already attached themselves to him before he went into politics, and before he became prime minister. People then saw him as a known quantity, and a known quality, able, predictable, of calm temperament, and a disdain for the glib slogan, contemptible slur, or politics of emotionalism, prejudice and division.
It was for such qualities that the Newspolls that charted the collapse of support for Abbott and Abbotism consistently saw Turnbull as the man who could rescue the Coalition from seemingly inevitable defeat. It was for such qualities that once Turnbull mounted the coup and took over, business and consumer confidence soared, and his party's re-election seemed certain.
People remember that Turnbull, in mounting his challenge to Abbott, spoke of successive bad Newspoll results, and the virtual certainty that, if things went on, Shorten would be the next prime minister. Now his own run of bad poll results is being used against him. But so could his words about leadership.
"It is clear enough that the government is not successful in providing the economic leadership that we need. It is not the fault of individual ministers. Ultimately, the prime minister has not been capable of providing the economic leadership our nation needs," Turnbull said.
We should run any statements of Australian values past Aborigines living at, say, Wadeye, Yuendumu, Goodooga and West End.
"He has not been capable of providing the economic confidence that business needs. Now, we are living as Australians in the most exciting time. The big economic changes that we're living through here and around the world offer enormous challenges and enormous opportunities.
"And we need a different style of leadership. We need a style of leadership that explains those challenges and opportunities, explains the challenges and how to seize the opportunities. A style of leadership that respects the people's intelligence, that explains these complex issues and then sets out the course of action we believe we should take and makes a case for it. We need advocacy, not slogans.
"We need to respect the intelligence of the Australian people.
"The one thing that is clear about our current situation is the trajectory. We have lost 30 Newspolls in a row. It is clear that the people have made up their mind about Mr Abbott's leadership.
"Now, what we also need to remember, and this is a critical thing, is that our party – the Liberal Party – has the right values ... of free enterprise, of individual initiative, of freedom; this is what you need to be a successful agile economy in 2015. What we have not succeeded in doing is translating those values into the policies and the ideas that will excite the Australian people and encourage them to believe and understand that we have a vision for their future.
"There must be an end to policy on the run and captain's calls. We need to be truly consultative with colleagues, members of Parliament, senators and the wider public."
Eighteen months on, the public has seen little of the Turnbull they wanted and expected. He has seemed in a dearth dance with a conservative wing of the party that has always mistrusted, usually despised him. A new prime minister, as Paul Keating once said, changes the country and the conversation. But although the nation endured a certain period of relief after Abbott's downfall, Turnbull has failed to rebuild the nation or the government in his own image.
Constantly criticised for his failure to inspire or to paint a plausible tale about where he wants to take the country, he has reached into a grab bag of "vision things" – most of which show little evidence of research or genuine touch for the public mood. Most have been forgotten, whether in the public mind, commentaries and the Parliament within weeks. We've had innovation. Disruption. We've had the redevelopment of South Australia on the back of the submarine project. We've had a new Snowy Mountains scheme and any number of big projects in Queensland, NSW and Tasmania, few of which seem to have galvanised the public imagination.
We've had repackaged 457 schemes to pander to false Hansonite and CFMEU claims that foreigners are stealing Australian jobs. A man who promised to defend free trade is using more and more phrases that suggest building walls around the nation. Now, in an almost direct pinch of Abbott's Team Australia, we have Australian values, and the pretence that unAustralian types (by clear implication Muslims) will out themselves by failing to know that domestic violence, or female (but not male) genital mutilation, is wrong.
Turnbull has been unlike Abbott in (so far) failing to confect any national security crisis, but is dog-whistling to popular anxiety about it. And while blandly insisting that the policies represent no threat to multiculturalism, he is using well-chosen words suggesting that conformity and assimilation are at the heart of Australian values.
Not a little of his patter this week seems at odds with his statements, inside cabinet, when he led the charge against the Abbott-Dutton-Pezzulo moves to allow government to strip citizens of citizenship. His pragmatism has been in one direction and, if it has sustained him in the party room, it has chipped at his identity, authority and legitimacy.
I somehow have a feeling we should run any statements of Australian values past Aborigines living at, say, Wadeye, Yuendumu, Goodooga and West End, as well, of course, by those who have had such close encounters with these values in action at Manus and Nauru.
Were the public to feel that the daily announcement of solutions to non-problems were but frolics or flourishes by a person who has become a bit bored by the smooth and professional way in which he and senior ministers were running the economy, and promoting jobs and growth, it might be a bit indulgent with him – at least as long as there were no Abbott-style surprises. But there is ample evidence the economy is stagnating, not least because of slow wages growth, and that business and consumer confidence is holding back growth. Accompanying this is considerable uncertainty about international growth, and political and economic relationships with our friends and neighbours. Whatever is happening, or is going to happen abroad, it seems unlikely Australia will have much capacity to influence it, or will be faster than anyone else in anticipating it. The budget may address some particular public issues, such as housing affordability and energy prices, but seems unlikely to give growth or confidence any sort of impetus.
The idea of sound steering, or sure feel for the course, is also considerably undermined by the sheer chaos of National Party boondoggling, and the rein Barnaby Joyce has been given to sprout loony economic theories, nonsense about the efficacy of dams, or doomed and foolish decentralisation schemes. There is a case for repopulating rural and regional Australian with Commonwealth public servants delivering goods and services. There is no case for sending specialised agencies, or policy and regulatory units, to centres lacking ready access to the places where decisions are made.
Those worried for the ship of state should, by now, be dropping their focus on where, if anywhere, Turnbull wants to take us, and what he thinks he is doing. They should be asking instead how long he can survive, and what damage he will do to the country as he concentrates solely on month-to-month survival.
Jack Waterford is a former Canberra Times editor.