Barry Cassidy has appeared on ABC’s News Breakfast, whereby he has predicted that the Federal Election is likely to end in a dead heat with both major parties locked at 72 seats a piece, four short of the 76 seats required to form a majority:
“… the Coalition is confident they’ll do better than 72 because they say they will do better with postal votes. They were saying on the night “Wait until the pre-polls come in, we’ll do better” and they didn’t. Historically they do marginally better with postal votes”.
On a the possibility of the Coalition scraping through to a majority government, Cassidy says it would be “a remarkable result from where they sit at the moment”.
He added:
“I can’t see that happening. The most ambitious aim would be to get to 75 and try and persuade one or two to give them emotional if not practical support. I can’t see that happening. We are well and truly in hung parliament territory”.
Cassidy also commented on the stocks of both leaders following this Election. Regarding Malcolm Turnbull and the Coalition:
“They [divisions] are deeper than ever because of his performance. He was put in the job back in September, that’s the way it looked, he was the messiah, the guy who had the power of the polls and he blew it”.
And on Bill Shorten and Labor:
“Anybody who goes within a whisker of achieving something no-one else has achieved in 85 years, that is bring down a first-term government, you’d think he would be reasonably safe… He lost the rank-and-file last time to Anthony Albanese, this time he would win both”.
So, if anything, Bill Shorten has strengthened his position whereas Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership looks to be on borrowed time.
For mine, the demise of Turnbull is inevitable. Like most people I was initially thrilled when Turnbull took over the Prime Ministership from Tony Abbott, believing that we had a leader that would place good policy over short-term political opportunism. He even promised us such an approach:
“Ultimately, the prime minister has not been capable of providing the economic leadership our nation needs… We need a different style of leadership. We need a style of leadership that… respects the people’s intelligence, that explains these complex issues and then sets out a course of action that we believe we should take… We need to respect the intelligence of the Australian people. We need to restore traditional cabinet government [and] put an end to policy on the run and captain’s calls”.
– Malcolm Turnbull, launching his leadership challenge, 14 September 2015.
Yet, in just nine months we witnessed a Prime Minister completely devoid of policy, while performing a U-turn and going against many of the things that he previously stood for (e.g. climate policy, reforming property tax concessions, etc).
Turnbull blew it. Not just with the Australian people, but in also failing to control the policy luddites in his own party.
Any legitimacy Turnbull once held has now evaporated. He is a dead PM walking, regardless of the final election outcome.
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