From Paul Kelly on the weekend:
The Liberal crisis is not a Rudd-Gillard repeat. Anyone who says this misses the entire point. Abbott has only a handful of backers and lacks the support to replace Turnbull. Indeed, Abbott will not seek to challenge Turnbull. Unlike Rudd, Abbott cannot offer a popularity boost for the government.
Unlike the Rudd-Gillard dispute, this is founded in a policy struggle for the soul of the Liberal Party. That makes it even more dangerous. Abbott is pitching not to the people but to the dwindling Liberal base. His message goes to the party’s identity and survival — he says unless Turnbull parades as a centre-right leader and radiates core Liberal convictions then conservative voters will keep defecting and threaten the long-run future of the Liberal Party.
In this atmosphere the Liberals forget the golden rule of Bob Menzies and John Howard: you neutralise Labor on the issues where the Liberals are weak and you maximise the differences on the issues where the Liberals are strong, typically the economy and national security. Two tactics are needed — appeasement and combat. It is an ancient law of politics.
The conservatives overlook that Menzies was a genius at stealing Labor policies. What was the first big announcement John Howard made in 1995 on returning to the Liberal leadership? He declared the epic conflict over Medicare was terminated. Howard accepted Medicare lock, stock and barrel, “not as a tactic but as a belief”. That decision underpinned his 11 years as a successful PM. Nobody complained he was being Labor-lite.
…Abbott’s agenda, however, has another purpose — it is a credo to appeal to the Liberal voters to halt their defection to Pauline Hanson and Cory Bernardi. Abbott believes the conservative wing of Liberal voting support faces destruction between now and the next election and, if Hanson and Bernardi get entrenched, that will come at the permanent loss of a section of the Liberal base. In Abbott’s hands, this appeal would be effective and, in turn, it is designed to reveal Turnbull’s core problem: his inability to win the trust of the conservative base.
…Turnbull’s tension with the conservative base is entrenched. Above all, Turnbull needs a strategy to manage Abbott. Without such a strategy he is doomed. But is such a strategy possible?
There is no obvious answer. There are three options. First, stage a peace negotiation. That means bringing Abbott back to the cabinet in a high-profile ministry…It remains theory since their enmity is permanent.
The second option is the removal of Abbott from politics — but Abbott has no wish to go, doesn’t want a diplomatic appointment and sees politics as his “vocation”. The government, of course, would not want a by-election anyway.
Third, Turnbull needs to bring his cabinet into the sunlight because cabinet is the best functioning unit he has and everyone knows the power dynamics — key conservatives Mathias Cormann and Peter Dutton are the arch defenders of Turnbull’s leadership…Turnbull needs to better promote the idea of his leadership being for both wings of the party — conservative and progressive. One of his worst blunders was not to use this Howard terminology.
Unifying language ain’t going to cut it by itself, nor is shining more light on Creepy Pete and friends. Indeed, Mr Kelly is misreading the script.
This is not a battle of ideals. The Liberal Party has none. It’s not “liberal” socially or economically. It’s not market friendly in resources energy, housing, or the vast majority of over-consolidated private sectors. The Liberal Party is oligarchic in most policy endeavours.
No, this is a battle of identities not ideals, based upon the usual binary that dominates the Australian mentality: the battler versus the bludger. The battler is Australia’s model of virtue: fair dinkum, material, martial, hard-working. The bludger is Australia’s model of the profane: shifty, immaterial, peace-loving, grafting.
Tony Abbott is a battler and so is his platform:
- cut immigration;
- Budget repair;
- trash the RET, and
- reform the senate.
That can rewritten as:
- prevent the arrival of more bludgers;
- smash the welfare bludgers;
- end the climate change bludging, and
- boot the bludgers out of the senate.
On the other hand, Turnbull is the ultimate bludger: effete, intellectual and derived from banking. John Howard was a bit similar but he had the good sense to celebrate battler icons to the point of absurdity and the good fortune to enjoy a mining boom that enabled him to bash welfare bludgers for a decade, as well as the serendipity of several wars to prosecute against global bludgers.
The so-called Liberal Party “base” that is bleeding to One Nation are the bedrock of the battler identity. Pauline Hanson is the embodiment of it. Pretty words and public relations tactics aren’t going to do dick for this lot. Turnbull needs more battler in him and that means stuff you can touch not more airy fairy drivel.
Thus the path forward for Turnbull is to do to Abbott what he already did to Labor, steal his policies. Budget repair is lost and going to become explosive as the AAA is stripped well before the next election so should be avoided. But he could certainly ramp up the welfare bashing. Winding back carbon policies would lose the centre so that’s a bridge too far. That leaves him with cutting immigration and senate reform as easy wins.
Turnbull could go so far as to create a new ministry for Abbott and put him in charge of ensuring that the policy matrix measures up to the battler. Make him Special Minister of Straya. Give him licence to produce fresh ideas for fair dinkum reform (that is, more culture wars).
A new ReachTEL poll shows what the policy shift would do, via The Conversation:
A ReachTEL poll for Sky News, conducted Thursday from a sample of 2390, has Labor leading by 52-48, a one point gain for the Coalition since the previous Sky News ReachTEL, just after the May budget. Assuming the 7.1% undecided are excluded, primary votes are 36.5% Coalition (down 1.3), 35.6% Labor (up 1.4), 10.3% Greens (steady) and 9.8% One Nation (down 0.4).
The primary vote changes suggest Labor should have gained after preferences, but ReachTEL is using respondent allocated preferences.According to Kevin Bonham, using previous election preferences, Labor leads by 52.8-47.2, a 1.3 point gain for Labor since the previous ReachTEL.
At the 2016 election, One Nation preferences split almost 50-50 between the two major parties. However, this poll has evidence that One Nation is now attracting the hard right of the Coalition, and thus that their preferences will be more Coalition-friendly at the next election.
Turnbull is preferred as Liberal leader to Tony Abbott by 68-32, with Coalition voters favouring Turnbull 73-27. However, One Nation voters prefer Abbott by a massive 77-23. It appears that as Turnbull has become more centrist over the last two months, the hard right has moved towards One Nation.
ON is at its heart a single issue anti-immigration party. Combine an immigration cut with senate reform and it all but dies. Indeed, Pauline Hanson herself may do it:
Senator Hanson last night told The Weekend Australian that One Nation would not enter into a preference deal with the LNP ahead of the state election. But, noting the next federal election could be two years away, she would not rule out a preference deal with the federal Coalition. “It’s a long way off, two years away,’’ she said, when asked if she would consider a preference deal with the Turnbull government. “But he (Malcolm Turnbull) would want to get his act together before I did.’’
It will also wedge Labor’s joker in the pack negative gearing reforms. Right now those reforms are for the battlers (our kid that can’t buy homes). But don’t make the mistake of thinking that negative gearing is bludging. Oh no, the ATO is the ultimate bludger so any way you can push back against it is fair game. Investing in property is also the battler’s god-given right – “bricks and mortar. He ain’t making any more land” etc – it’s an asset you can see and touch, not this poofy electronic shit in markets. If cutting immigration addresses housing affordability then Labor’s reforms turn it into the bludger.
Of course none of this addresses the national interest in any considered and systematic way. But, hey, neither half of the Liberal Party is any longer capable of that, nor is its dedicated media cheer squad.
Neither can even recognise it, fatally fixated instead upon themselves.
