Loon Pond bubbles over

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Via the AFR:

Malcolm Turnbull must put more conservatives in the cabinet and demote Christopher Pyne if he wants to hang on to his leadership and prevent civil war, senior conservatives say.

As Tony Abbott stepped up his campaign to topple Mr Turnbull with a provocative speech over policy direction, the Prime Minister sought to restore calm by killing a push by fellow moderates to secure the passage of a bill for same-sex marriage as early as August.

But senior conservatives say Mr Turnbull needs to bring forward a planned reshuffle of his cabinet, pencilled in for the end of the year, and make major changes to give conservatives a greater influence in the decision-making process.

…Trouble flared on Monday when a speech by senior moderate Christopher Pyne to a closed factional function on Friday night was recorded and leaked. In it, he boasted of the increasing moderate control over the party and flagged that polarising issue of same-sex marriage would be resolved soon.

This riled the Right which has grown increasingly frustrated at Mr Pyne’s influence.

“It was like the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said a conservative of Mr Pyne’s speech.

…So bitter have the divisions become that at a corresponding dinner of the party’s right wing on Saturday night, organised by the Young Liberal Movement and Eric Abetz’s office, conservatives who voted for Mr Turnbull in the 2015 leadership spill were excluded. These included ministers Alex Hawke, Michaelia Cash, Scott Ryan and Mitch Fifield. Mr Abbott received a standing ovation at the dinner.

“It’s who supported Abbott and who did not. That’s become the line in the sand,” said a senior source of who now is counted as a true conservative.

And The Australian:

Malcolm Turnbull faces a test of his leadership as a bloc of Liberal MPs push to legislate for same-sex marriage before the next election, in a move that threatens the Coalition agreement with the ­Nationals and risks a civil war ­inside the partyroom.

At least five Liberal MPs have held discussions on framing legislation that would be presented to parliament in a bid to force a resolution on same-sex marriage and allow the government “clean air” leading into the next election.

Several senior MPs said that if there was any move to shift from the plebiscite policy, the Prime Minister’s own position would become “untenable”.

Senior conservative MPs, who did not want to be named, told The Australian the gay marriage row would become a leadership issue for Mr Turnbull should it come before the partyroom again in August.

“If anything occurs on gay marriage in the partyroom the next thing that will happen will be a spill motion — that day,” one MP told The Australian. “And it doesn’t matter if it is endorsed by the PM or not.”

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Loons are thought to have a few more votes than moderates with a swing vote in the middle. There does not appear to any great plan here from the loons beyond furious opportunism to keep the Newspoll’s sinking via their own fractiousness.

The danger for Do-Labor Malcolm is growing but is still a little longer term in my view. While the loon’s can keep pressure on the Newspoll countdown towards 30 lost polls towards year end, the Budget will increasingly be dying right along with it.

That still seems to me to be the key factor ahead for the Coaliton’s swinging rump. Once the Budget outlook collapses again and the sovereign rating is stripped, Malcolm’s and Scott’s Labor Budget will be become very vulnerable to Coalition anger.

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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.