The spill is only a matter of time now, via Domainfax:
Senior ministers believe a cabinet leak that revealed the Turnbull government considered reversing its opposition to a banking royal commission was designed to damage Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton and create chaos in the government.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull once again slammed the door shut on a banking royal commission on Wednesday, while Treasurer Scott Morrison admitted “that cabinet from time to time would consider these sorts of issue”.
Reports of the leak suggested Mr Turnbull and Mr Dutton canvassed a shift to support the inquiry, whereas Mr Morrison argued against the move. Cabinet ministers contacted by Fairfax Media were furious about the leak to News Corp, with one suggesting “someone is trying to create tensions between us that are not there” and another insisting “there is no animosity in cabinet”.
A second cabinet minister said it was correct some ministers had canvassed dropping the government’s opposition to an inquiry – and that it would have been extraordinary had it not been discussed, given a push for the inquiry from the Nationals – but the discussion had actually been “workman-like and calm”.
A third minister said that “people are seeing this as a strike against the PM, Morrison and Dutton. This does not play well for any of them and just creates tensions. It has been interpreted as a third party”.
The Real Estate Treasurer is openly colluding with the banks, Via The Australian:
Scott Morrison has summoned the chairs of Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, ANZ and National Australia Bank to a series of urgent, private meetings amid mounting internal pressure from Coalition MPs for an inquiry into the big four banks.
It is understood the Treasurer’s office has requested as-soon-as-possible appointments for Morrison with the Commonwealth Bank’s Catherine Livingstone, ANZ’s David Gonski, Westpac’s Lindsay Maxsted and NAB’s Ken Henry to be held before the delayed sitting of the House of Representatives on December 4.
It is believed Morrison will discuss with the bank leaders those issues that continue to be presented to Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership team by those Liberal and Nationals members whose electorate offices have transformed into complaint centres for aggrieved bank customers.
The high-level meetings come as Nationals senator (and property baron) Barry O’Sullivan calls for a commission of inquiry into the banks, to which the Turnbull government is opposed.
A commission of inquiry would report to the parliament and not the government. O’Sullivan has claimed several Coalition MPs would cross the floor to vote in favour of it. Those votes, combined with the support of Bill Shorten’s Labor and the Greens, could see the proposal pass.
As the good ship Malcolm Turnbull sinks at Titanic pace, from Mark Kenny:
Suddenly the question is everywhere: can Malcolm Turnbull survive? It’s arisen before, of course, but was written off as Labor mischief-making, or as political hypersensitivity syndrome, after the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd-Abbott-Turnbull careen made constant change seem inevitable.
Now, for the first time, the question is real. Again.
Backbenchers are calling for it and the Labor Party is in favour but Malcolm Turnbull has emphatically ruled out a banking royal commission.
Turnbull’s cabinet leaks. Ministers position on policy such as a banking royal commission as ciphers in personal power struggles. Backbenchers freelance without admonishment on Sky News. Talk of crossing the floor abounds. All of this without the slightest regard for the Prime Minister’s prestige.
Discipline has left the building. Turnbull is in danger of leaving too, having never fully been here.
As the government unravels, what had been unthinkable among the troops is losing its status as a “no-go-zone”.
A recent poll showed Julie Bishop, Turnbull’s Liberal Party deputy, as more popular than him. Her name has been linked to a run with Treasurer Scott Morrison as her deputy. The symmetries at least, seem to work. Left-right, west-east, woman-man. It has some obvious marketing taglines, if nothing else. Both deny it.
It is a defensive foil to another ticket being floated involving the more hardline, and therefore less marketable Peter Dutton and Greg Hunt combination. This has been unkindly dubbed the Batman and Robin option, which is hardly helpful.
They’re so dumb, this lot. It doesn’t matter who replaces The Idiot. What matters is a policy shift. NZ’s Jacinda Ardern has shown the way. Tax cuts are fine but the only thing that will change the government’s fate is to materially cut immigration and police foreign buying of realty to:
- deliver housing affordability and counter Labor’s negative gearing reforms;
- turn the Coalition into the champion of wages growth;
- lift the congestion choking east coast cities;
- recapture the One Nation vote, and
- make the Coalition the only real green party in the parliament.
The anger over “Big Australia” in the community is building to rage. Tap it and you can win.
