From Jack the Insider:
Alternative leaders who could seamlessly move into the Lodge while keeping the baying within the party down to a dull roar are as scarce as rocking horse excreta.
Julie Bishop? Malcolm Turnbull in stilettoes. No solution there.
Tony Abbott does not have the support base within his own party and there remain grave concerns about his ability to lead in government. Still, optimists might recall he won the 2013 election in a near landslide while Turnbull could only muster a one-seat majority.
In any event, should Abbott return to the leadership, the net effect would be dangerous pressure on the broad church and bring with it the possibility of schism and or crippling defeat at the next election. Maybe both.
Scott Morrison? The Treasurer has done what many had thought was impossible. He has made his predecessor, Joe Hockey, look good by comparison.
Peter Dutton has emerged as a leadership candidate. Dutton holds his seat of Dickson with a margin of 3.2 per cent. There was a 5.1 per cent swing against him in the 2016 election. The early polling is showing a five to six per cent swing against the government. Dutton will struggle to win his seat.
Regardless of the alternative, a leadership spill would create the preconditions for a split within the party. If a spill was successful, where would it leave Malcolm Turnbull? Would he wander off into the sunset or take his bat and ball as well as 30 or so devotees, many of them current members of cabinet, and hit the backbench with revenge lust?
…Once a schism starts, it develops a force of its own and becomes unstoppable. In this case, it would leave the government broken and beyond repair, allowing Bill Shorten to fall arse backwards into the Lodge.
The glimmer of hope for the Liberal Party is Shorten continues to be perceived as a poor leader and that in the white heat of a campaign, Malcolm Turnbull might still pull off a victory.
In the current political environment, it is a long shot, a Hail Mary play but it remains the best hope of the Liberal Party remaining a political force in this country.
I still expect a leadership spill next year when it’s too late for Do-nothing Malcolm to destabilise the party again. One must remember that the policy shift required to save the party – large immigration cuts – will shift polling, so assuming that leadership candidates like Peter Dutton will be wiped out at the next election is missing the counter-factual.
Conversely, given Do-nothing Malcolm clearly values staying atop the greasy pole above all else, as he stares into the abyss I expect he will react by figurately selling his mother and cutting immigration hard himself.
That’s the only policy shift that will pull the base back from its drift to One Nation, as well as neutralise Labor’s trump card, the negative gearing reforms.
