From The Australian:
A clash over Liberal Party reform is about to give Tony Abbott a new platform from which to attack Malcolm Turnbull, amid growing concern over the former prime minister’s “frontal assault” on the government as it slumps in the opinion polls.
Mr Abbott will join fellow conservatives this Saturday to debate giving party members more power, before a summit of members next month that will test the Prime Minister’s authority.
Government backbenchers are now bracing for a move against Mr Turnbull before the next election, believing Mr Abbott will escalate his arguments for an alternative manifesto and will claim that he or his allies can “save the furniture” at the next election.
Meanwhile, Christopher Pyne groveled for his job:
Lordy, Chris, how about standing up for what you believe in?
Andrew Bolt smells blood:
THE only thing saving Malcolm Turnbull from being sacked as PM is the lack of an obvious successor.
And as said earlier this week, appears to have won his war with wider Newscorp as it sinks the boot into the moderates, from Simon Benson:
Malcolm Turnbull has six weeks to decide how to unite an increasingly divided party or accept one of two inevitabilities.
The potential erosion of the Prime Minister’s own leadership is an obvious consequence of a failure to act, as much as he may believe it is a vacuum of trivia inside a Canberra bubble.
But the broader and longer-term significance is for the Liberal Party itself. This is not an imagined threat. These are dire times.
Turnbull must find a way to unite the party before the vexing issue of gay marriage becomes a proxy for the leadership and a cleaver to split the party for a generation. Whether he likes it or not, it is the leader’s job to fix it.
Turnbull has said all that he can say to reassure not only his colleagues but voters that he is not for changing.
But the perception created from Christopher Pyne’s frolic on the subject and the ensuing rage from conservative ranks is of a cockpit with no pilot.
Conservative MPs are demanding something more demonstrable. They want Pyne’s scalp and they are demanding Turnbull deal with the moderates who are openly defying the position that was agreed.
Greg Sheridan continues his Catholic jihad:
Every so often a single policy episode illustrates the decline of a nation or at least its public policy culture. Gonski 2.0 is such a case.
It deserves a place on university courses for study of the worst possible policy produced by the worst possible process. It also indicates the more or less complete political bankruptcy of the federal Liberal Party, its comprehensive capitulation to Labor in political ideas.
Way back in the late 1970s when Malcolm Fraser had crushed Labor for a time, I recall the great Dick Klugman describing to me what Labor’s budgetary policy was. It was simply to take whatever deficit Fraser produced and add a billion.
Now, the Liberals’ basic policy is to do whatever Labor was going to do, but a billion or two less, thereby claiming a faux fiscal responsibility.
Politically, this tactic will ultimately be disastrous. It also furnishes very bad policy.
Though Turnbull is not without allies, in Gary Johns:
Christopher Pyne’s braggadocio to the Liberal left on delivering gay marriage soon is as credible as Jeremy Corbyn’s boast to be British prime minister in six months. Any move on gay marriage in this parliament would be fatal to Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership, and Turnbull knows it.
Alternatively, the theory that Turnbull wants to be remembered for delivering gay marriage, on the way to political oblivion, is as credible as the idea that Kevin Rudd sleeps well because he apologised to the Stolen Generations. Politics is bigger than mere gestures.
Turnbull is not going anywhere. The arguments to replace him are thin and self-serving. They reek of revenge, and although revenge is ever-present in political life it is not a reason to invite worse alternatives. I know that those many who wish to replace Turnbull also understand the risks associated with a Labor-Green government. So, in the context of the hostile ideological environment of which the Coalition is partly to blame, the Coalition needs to assess the best means of keeping the wolves from the door.
Having to write such things of course implies the complete opposite.David Crowe puts his finger on it:
A cabinet reshuffle was always part of Malcolm Turnbull’s plan to refresh his team. The likely timeframe was always December.
Now the Coalition’s internal turmoil has reached a point where dissatisfied MPs want to bring on a change as soon as possible. This is the lazy response to every outbreak of bad blood.
Within a day or two of a blow-up, ambitious MPs start agitating for change. They can’t be sure it is good for the government but they know it is good for themselves.
This is part of the template for leadership unrest. If the day one story is a ministerial stumble, the day two story will be a call for a reshuffle.
As the unsrupulous pollie knows well, blockading democratic process exposes its fatal flaw: that such dysfunction is blamed upon the incumbent and, sooner or later, the only choice is the blockader.
