NSW Deputy Premier calls for Turnbull to resign
Via the ABC:
New South Wales Deputy Premier John Barilaro has called on Malcolm Turnbull to resign, describing the Prime Minister as “completely out of touch”.
In an explosive interview on radio 2GB, Mr Barilaro questioned Mr Turnbull’s leadership and said he had “lost all hope”.
“Turnbull is the problem, the Prime Minister is the problem,” he said.
“He should step down, allow for a clean out of what the leadership looks like federally.
“And whoever governs the country needs to make sure that they put the country and its people first.”
Mr Barilaro, the NSW Nationals leader, is the highest ranking Coalition MP to publicly call for the Prime Minister’s resignation.
“You’ve got a party in disarray, a Coalition Government in disarray and a community not unified and that is all at the feet of the Prime Minister of Australia,” he said.
Mr Barilaro said the Queensland election had been a “disaster”.
“What really got up my goat was on Sunday, was to hear the Prime Minister of this nation say there were no federal issues that affected the state election.
“That’s just a joke.”
Hear, hear.
The Idiot responded as if in some kindergarten:
The Prime Minister, speaking on 3AW, responded by saying Mr Barilaro had “never raised these matters with me personally’’.
“The last time I was with him was down at Cooma at Snowy Mountains Scheme and we were talking about Snowy Hydro 2 and he was full of joy with the big investment we’re going to make there,’’ Mr Turnbull said.
He said Mr Barilaro should make such comments face to face, rather than “bagging” him in the media, and suggested Mr Barilaro was just trying to “ingratiate” himself with Alan Jones.
“He actually made similar comments a little while ago and I left a message with him and he didn’t call me back, but he’s got my number, he can call me any time,” Mr Turnbull told 3AW. “I’d be delighted to have a chat to him, but I think if somebody has a view like that, if I had a view about a state leader of that kind, I would express it, if I expressed it at all, privately and face to face. I wouldn’t be bagging them in the media like that.”
David Crowe sums up the terrain:
Malcolm Turnbull would be lucky to survive another week as Prime Minister if he were to be judged by the standards applied to his predecessors just a few years ago. He is in more trouble than Kevin Rudd in early 2010 and facing just as much danger as Julia Gillard in 2013 and Tony Abbott in 2015.
…Is the Prime Minister’s time up? It is a natural question after the past decade of Australian politics. The answer is that Turnbull is not holding on through personal popularity. The arguments against a coup are coldly rational.
“The transaction costs of leadership change, we’ve proven, are just diabolical,” says one Liberal who has no illusions about the Prime Minister’s failings. There is no confidence that a replacement could do better. Julie Bishop is a clear alternative but is opposed by the conservatives. Peter Dutton can count on the conservatives but has no wider popularity in the electorate. Scott Morrison continues to suffer from the distrust of conservatives without having much support from the moderates.
This does not give Turnbull any security. The most it gives him is time.
Some of the Nationals are sniping at Turnbull in the hope they can weaken him today and help their preferred candidate tomorrow. Conservative Queenslanders such as George Christensen would clearly prefer Dutton. The Nationals have been agitating so vigorously, they look like trying to engineer the leadership of the Liberals. It is 50 years to the month since their hero, “Black Jack” McEwen, did exactly that.
The government is very close to losing Bennelong. Liberal Party polling is said to show Kristina Keneally is neck-and-neck with John Alexander. Labor is outgunning the government on the ground. The combined power of Labor, the Greens, the unions and GetUp! seems likely to deliver the seat to the opposition.
Paul Kelly says they hate each other now:
The Nationals have played hard and won a propaganda coup — they can tell constituents it was the Nationals, not Labor, the Greens or One Nation, that delivered the royal commission.
But they had best beware. They put a political gun to the head of the Turnbull government and the Liberals, unleashing bitterness that will endure. They have forced Turnbull into what John Howard called “rank socialism” — an act many Liberals see as a betrayal.
Turnbull and Joyce need to sort out the future rules of Coalition engagement. Meanwhile Turnbull will face criticism he has lost control of the government.
He has lost control. Cratering polls will drive the leadership change from here.
