Welcome to 2017, the Year of the Trump!
I won’t join the MSM bodice-ripping following The Donald wherever he goes. That would play into Mr Trump’s and his media guru Steve Bannon’s hands. I’m just returned from Mt Whistler in Canada and can report that it’s precisely the same over there, with CNN offering 24 hour coverage to its new enemy incarnate, the American President.
Appropriately enough, the last time I traveled to Mt Whistler in 1988 I was arrested and detained for an evening at the immigration gate owing to administrative obtuseness. It happens. The real power of the executive order is in its symbolism and on that front it is going swimmingly for President Trump. He wants to appear a change agent to his close-minded support base and that’s what the media is giving him; a shining symbol in its wall-to-wall panic about the travel ban.
More interesting is what it means for domestic politics. The MSM hand-wringing gives us some idea today with all players rolling out their political mythologies in response.
Do-nothing Malcolm is, of course, doing nothing, via The Australian:
Malcolm Turnbull is under fire for refusing to take a position on Donald Trump’s immigration ban amid a dispute over Muslim migrants that is pitting government backbenchers against each other.
The Prime Minister declared it was “not my job” to cast a verdict on Mr Trump’s temporary ban on arrivals from seven largely Muslim nations as he sought to cement a crucial refugee deal with the new President.
But the government has ordered its officials to seek “preferential treatment” for Australians with dual nationality who could be blocked by the policy, amid protests at US airports and confusion over the breadth of the ban.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has directed staff at the Australian embassy in Washington to work with US counterparts to gain the same exemptions offered to Canadians with dual citizenship.
Expect extreme dedication to nothing from Malcolm this year. He is paralysed by his support for the party Right on one hand and his popular centrism on the other. I doubt he will see out 2018 as PM. Abbott is playing his cards nicely stoking dissent as Parallel PM and the Loon Pond split that looms around Cory Bernardi offers a decade of wilderness for the party. Do-nothing Malcolm can’t unite the party nor reform it.
The Opposition leader, Bill Shorten appears more Prime Ministerial, via Domainfax:
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has slammed US President Donald Trump’s ban on immigration from seven predominantly-Muslim countries as “appalling”, arguing Australia should not stay silent on the decision that has shocked the world.
After Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull refused to condemn the immigration ban, which has seen visitors and visa-holders thrown off planes as they try to travel to the US, Mr Shorten said to remain silent could be “interpreted as agreement”.
Earlier on Monday, Mr Turnbull differed from his counterparts in much of the western world by refusing to criticise the ban. “It is not my job, as Prime Minister of Australia, to run a commentary on the domestic policies of other countries,” he said.
But Mr Shorten called on the PM to “reconsider” his rhetoric, following widespread condemnation by advocacy groups, including Amnesty International, which said the Turnbull government’s response “beggared belief”.
We can expect Mr Shorten to play a double game this year of symbolic outrage and policy shifting towards lower immigration via the tightening of the great visa rort.
The Greens do symbolism better than most, via The Australian:
Greens leader Richard Di Natale has called for Australia to “junk” its longstanding alliance with the US as retribution for Donald Trump’s move to ban people from seven Muslim countries from entering the US.
Dr Di Natale said Malcolm Turnbull needed to match the position shown so far by the UK and Germany, where the governments have already expressed their concern about the ban.
“If this prime minister is a leader, if this prime minister is a somebody who is prepared to stand up for values of freedom, of Liberty, of inclusion, then he will instruct Julie Bishop to pick up the phone and express Australia’s opposition to what Donald Trump is doing right now,” Dr Di Natale said in Melbourne today.
“Instead of celebrating (and) fawning over the US president, now is the time for leadership, to express that in the strongest possible terms and to make it clear that Australia does not support what this president is doing.
“We need to now, more than ever, ask ourselves whether our alliance with the United States of America is in the national interest.
“Australia needs to junk the US alliance. It needs to renegotiate the terms of a new relationship with the US that advances our interests and advances the interests of people right across the world.”
Someone needs to ask Mr Di Natale how we will counter-balance Chinese totalitarianism if Australia goes that way? There is an unanswered question about climate policy and whether China or the US is now our greatest ally, but asking whether we should invite China to waltz over local democracy should at least be a consideration.
The most obvious winner is, of course, One Nation, which will have a gale of legitimacy behind it as Pauline Hanson turns from pariah to prophet:
She will clearly be aided by the hysterical wider reaction to every Trump policy, as well as the rapid rise of deglobalisation parties across Europe. The looming QLD election is shaping as a watershed moment for One Nation, via Nine:
A Queensland state election could come as early as March, government sources have told 9NEWS after the Premier said earlier this week it could be anytime between now and next May.
Environment minister Steven Miles said his campaign team is preparing for an election late this year at the earliest, however an earlier election would mean halting the momentum of One Nation.
The party yesterday both lost and gained a candidate.
Peter Rogers was dumped as the candidate for Mulgrave two weeks after making headlines with a controversial post on his website.
The post, which he says was written by a friend while he was out of the country, alleges the Port Arthur massacre and the death of a Syrian toddler who drowned at sea which sparked a global outcry last year, were fabrications.
Mr Rogers says his axing came as a surprise, given a fortnight had passed since the controversy, and claimed the party had decided to cut him loose because they’d found another candidate to contest the seat.
He hit out at Ms Hanson’s handling of the situation and accused her of being under the control of controversial chief of staff James Ashby.
Former LNP member Sam Cox is the latest defector to One Nation. He will contest the seat of Burdekin.
“What we’ve seen is that it’s increasingly hard to see the difference between One Nation and the LNP in Queensland,” tourism minister Kate Jones said.
In sum, domestic politics will play out much as it did last year only with greater intensification and disruption as those who move to outflank One Nation win the day. It will weigh on the economy at the margin as confidence struggles amid the structural challenges and:
- One Nation offers the first real challenge to the two party system in a century;
- Do-nothing Malcolm falls;
- the Liberal Party swings Right including an inevitable shift against immigration to counter Pauline Hanson and Labor’s housing affordability agenda;
- Labor shifts Left including a more subtle shift against immigration via tightening of visa rorts;
- Green denial soars into the cold and empty firmament.
