Wentworth chaos engulfs government

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Barnaby leads us off, at Domainfax:

Former Nationals leaders have warned Barnaby Joyce to abandon a growing push to reinstate him as deputy prime minister while also urging federal MPs to “save the ship” by rejecting the leadership turmoil that has taken hold in Canberra.

Tim Fischer and John Anderson, who served as deputy prime ministers under John Howard, told Fairfax Media the party had to stop disputes over the leadership and help fix a “trust deficit” with voters that was fracturing Australian politics.

“There is a federal election coming and the last thing the Australian people want is any confirmation that white-anting has taken a permanent place in the Australian political landscape,” Mr Anderson said.

He won’t stop. Meanwhile, another wrecker ramped up, via the ABC yesterday:

A week after warning voters that the Liberal Party has been taken over by hard right “extremists”, Alex Turnbull, the son of the former PM, has told Hack he’s going to keep on “fighting the good fight against the crazies”.

After keeping very quiet during the five years his dad was part of the Government, the Singapore-based hedge fund manager created a splash last week with a video urging voters in the inner-Sydney seat of Wentworth to not vote Liberal in the by-election this Saturday.

“We need to send a message on climate change,” he wrote.

“This time, don’t give the Liberals your vote.”

Since then, the Government has supported a motion in the Senate saying, “It’s okay to be white” – a phrase associated with the white supremacist movement. It has also announced it may relocate its embassy to Jerusalem – a proposal condemned by trade partners that could lead to a breakdown in economic relations with Arab and Muslim nations.

Last week also saw Liberal MPs express support for new laws that would codify the right of religious schools to expel gay students.

All this, Alex Turnbull told Hack, is evidence the party his father once led is being held “to ransom” by One Nation in the Senate, and was “completely fixated” on the three seats in Far North Queensland.

“I honestly wish I could say I was more surprised because we’ve seen this happen in the US – that’s what’s so disturbing.”

“The US is further down this road, particularly the Republican party.

“They’ve more or less completely abandoned any classical liberal values.”

The Liberal Party is slipping that way. Australia is going to need a new party or the Liberals are going to have to pull up on the stick sooner rather than later.

Asked who he meant by “the crazies”, he listed the following top five ‘crazy’ Liberal MPs:

Tony Abbott – “a singularly destructive human being”
Peter Dutton – “obviously another one”
Angus Taylor – the newly appointed Energy Minister who is seen as a champion of fossil fuels and a determined opponent of renewables. “Despite being very intelligent he can’t get on the right side of events.”
(tied) Hard-right faction leaders Kevin Andrews and Eric Abetz

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Hard to argue against that. The same loons are desperately trying to hose off an ASIO report, via The Guardian:

Scott Morrison insists there is no evidence “at this time” of any planned violence as a consequence of his proposed shift in Middle East policy as the government launched a police investigation into the leaking of advice from Australia’s spy agency.

Guardian Australia revealed on Thursday that Asio warned ministers the day before Morrison unveiled the shift that a public signal about relocating Australia’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem may “provoke protest, unrest and possibly some violence in Gaza and the West Bank”. It could also possibly trigger domestic protests.

Pressed by Labor about the revelation of the secret intelligence briefing, Morrison characterised the security advice as routine and declared that all was well in the wake of the announcement.

But wait, if you’re against mindlessly provoking violence against Australians then you’re anti-Semitic, via News:

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“We are aware of Indonesia’s views on the Middle East peace process and they are entitled to their views on those, and we will discuss those views with them,” Mr Morrison answered.

The Prime Minister proceeded to attack Labor.

“I know the New South Wales Labor Party, with their good mates who banned the New South Wales Jewish border deputies from attending the Labor Union Multicultural Action Committee. So we have a New South Wales Labor Party which is behaving in an anti-Semitic way,” he said.

“And they want to pretend to the Australian people that they’re supporters of Israel. Really? Really?”

At that point, MPs on both sides of the chamber blew up, drowning out Mr Morrison and Mr Smith.

This is not government, it is chaos. To wit, at the SMH:

Senior NSW Liberals say it will take a “miracle” to win the Wentworth byelection, labelling a damaging email smearing independent Dr Kerryn Phelps as “the final nail” in the campaign.

Sources close to the campaign said the email that falsely claimed Dr Phelps had HIV and was pulling out of the race was “hugely damaging”, and had cruelled their chances of holding the seat.

Liberal candidate Dave Sharma called the email “vile” and supported Dr Phelps’ demands for its origin to be investigated by the Australian Electoral Commission.

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Mr Morrison would very clearly sell his mother to retain Wentworth but I very much doubt he will succeed.

The AFR asks what comes next:

The bigger challenge Morrison could face should Wentworth be lost is a fresh push from conservatives for a bolder policy agenda…including in the policy areas of immigration and foreign investment.

One template being touted is a new book by former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, entitled, Right Here, Right Now: Politics and Leadership in the Age of Disruption.

Harper argues the conservatives have a responsibility to address the political failures of globalisation and free markets, warning the “deplorables” who voted for Donald Trump and Brexit aren’t going away.

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Quite right but leaving it to the last minute amid desperation and chaos only discredits the agenda.

Prepare for Labor and much lower house prices.

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.