Lib: PM’s office has “obsessive control phobia”

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From the SMH:

Tony Abbott and his chief of staff Peta Credlin are enforcing a culture of “obsessive centralised control phobia” and are out of touch with voters, according to Liberal National Party senator Ian Macdonald, who has delivered a scathing attack on the Prime Minister’s office.

Senator Macdonald is furious that he has not been consulted about the government’s terms of reference for its Northern Australia policies, saying he “discovered” them by accident and was treated dismissively by the Prime Minister’s office.

“What you see in the terms of reference submitted by the government may be the Prime Minister’s office’s version of what it was all about,” Senator Macdonald said.

“But I have to advise them and my constituents that I will not have unelected advisers in the Prime Minister’s office telling elected politicians who are actually in touch with their constituencies what should and shouldn’t be done.”

Crikey.

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About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.