If you have any doubts about what’s tearing Malcolm Turnbott in twain then put those to rest. We have a backbench revolt of loon ponders actively pursuing private policy objectives, Tony Abbott himself blathering constantly about the wars he wants fought and now this from card-carrying Abbott loyalist Maurice Newman at The Australian:
When Malcolm Turnbull goes to the polls this year he will campaign largely on the Abbott government’s achievements. There will be little else.
Stopping the boats, scrapping the carbon and mining taxes, accelerating budget repair, the signing of trade agreements with Japan, South Korea and China, removing support for the ailing car industry, refusing financial support for (now profitable) Qantas, repealing red and green tape, the creation of innovation growth centres, and the commissioning of papers on tax reform, northern Australia and the federation are but some of the Abbott government’s successes. The record is impressive and will surprise many voters. Of course, Tony Abbott’s name won’t feature and some of his initiatives will be repackaged.
Given the proximity of the election and the government’s standing in the polls, Turnbull’s budget will be a triumph of politics over economics. It must make a virtue of faraway budget repair. It will be cloaked in “fair go” symbolism as it slugs the rich through superannuation and selective capital gains tax hikes, and puts caps on negative gearing. It will seek to provide temporary relief from bracket creep and give comfort to global-warming botherers by revisiting emission abatement schemes. Turnbull’s hollowness fuels perceptions that the Coalition offers no conviction or clear policy alternative to its rivals. Voters pick up on this and have the Coalition and its opponents neck and neck in the latest Newspoll.
…Government complacency at a time of global economic and social fragility defies reason. The Treasurer’s confidence in China’s long-term outlook is fine, but we need staying power to ride out the short-term financial fallout. If Australia is aware of the risks, it is not apparent.
Australia is adrift in a world that the tea leaves suggest is fraught with danger. We seem unprepared. Abbott had plans to transform the economy. They were often unloved but necessary.
Abbott had no plan to “transform the economy”. He had a plan to rebuild the Budget in ways that undermined themselves. There was zero structural change in his approach, which was the problem.
But you get the idea. The loon pond is clearly at work on a plot to destabilise Turnbott and he is having to placate them at every turn (though he shouldn’t). There’s a reason Tony Abbott’s name is now associated with nothing. He was electoral poison.
But I can no longer say with certainty that he won’t be back in charge before we vote again. Active internal destabilisation of a political party always wins in the long run as polling deteriorates.
