US President Donald Trump trashes US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Special Counsel Robert Mueller widens his inquiry into allegations of Trump election campaign collusion with Russia, and threats of a US-China trade war continue.
Meanwhile, back in The Lucky Country two competing factions in the NSW Liberal Party are tearing each other apart over an issue – plebiscites for the preselection of candidates in federal and state elections – they now more or less agree on.
The scent of blood, political paybacks, settling old scores, lust for power – whatever – seem to have taken over a party which, with a one-seat majority in federal Parliament, can ill afford to wash, or burn, its dirty linen in public.
But the issue is more complex than simply one of factional rivalry.
The right wing, which now calls for "democracy" in the NSW Liberal Party, ruled the Division with an iron fist until 2009 when a centre-right group splintered away, made common cause with the moderate faction, and took over the reins of power.
The right is being led in this "democratising" push by Walter Villatora. An energetic business consultant, tireless organiser, one-time campaign manager for former NSW Liberal premier Mike Baird in his seat of Manly, a failed candidate for Liberal Party preselection for federal and state seats, and president of the party's federal electorate council in former prime minister Tony Abbott's seat of Warringah, he is a formidable, relentless opponent in the NSW's party's notorious factional wars.
Abbott is backing Villatora and the "democracy" push, but experienced observers of the Liberal Party scene in NSW report that Villatora would still pursue his mission – with or without Abbott.
