By Leith van Onselen First Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull jettisoned Tony Abbott’s “captain’s calls” not to reform Australia’s giant and inequitable tax concessions (e.g. superannuation, negative gearing and the CGT discount), now he has taken an axe to Abbott’s “captain’s call” to appoint and fund “sceptical environmentalist”, Bjorn Lomborg, as an adjunct professor for a new “consensus centre”,
The Loon Pond is hurt, via The Australian: Liberal senator Eric Abetz has unleashed an attack on the Canberra press gallery, arguing it is hostile to conservative, Christian politicians while giving favourable treatment to left-leaning or Muslim MPs. Senator Abetz said the media had treated him and his conservative colleagues, in particular former prime minister
From Victoria Thieberger: One of the trickiest tasks in keeping the Australian economy growing into a 25th year is preventing shaky business and consumer confidence sliding into bleak pessimism, despite clear signs of a cooling housing market. The Reserve Bank knows this, and the government knows it. There are tentative signs that PM Turnbull’s positive
Not sure what this means but am tempted yell “shame”!
It’s not much a honeymoon for PM Turnbull. His own party hates him, apparently, from The Age: This weekend’s heckling of Malcolm Turnbull by the Liberal Party’s right showed only that he is a leader for the time in the way Tony Abbott never was. The first guffaws from the crowd at the party’s state
From Laura Tingle: [Greg] Hunt has had a busy week this week. He’s finally appointed board members to the Climate Change Authority (which suggests it might survive after Abbott’s attempts to kill it). There have been announcements about maps of the electricity grid designed to pinpoint spots where the efficiency of renewable energy investments can
Awesome: Liberal Party federal director Brian Loughnane, married to Tony Abbott’s chief of staff Peta Credlin, has announced he will stand down after 12 years in the job on Thursday.
From The Australian comes a loon pond spray to remember: Malcolm Turnbull’s dispatch of Tony Abbott from the prime ministership settled a score that had been festering from the moment Abbott became opposition leader. They are very different people. Unlike conservative Abbott, Turnbull appeals to the fashionable Left. He is a postmodern kind of guy,
From Phil Coorey: The day after his ouster, Abbott promised no sniping, no destabilisation…That undertaking lasted barely a week. None of this should come as a surprise to anyone. It’s what happens when you dump a first term prime minister. Clearly, there is a guerilla campaign afoot that would make even Kevin Rudd blush. In the 17
By Leith van Onselen I am fast becoming a fan of the Australian Greens under senator Richard Di Natale, who took over the leadership in May from Christine Milne. Under Di Natale, the Greens quickly changed track and supported the Government’s fuel excise re-indexation (opposed by Labor). The Greens then supported the Government’s Aged Pension
Hard not laugh at this one from The Australian: The Liberal Party is receiving hundreds of letters of resignation from branch members nationwide, refusals to work on election campaigns and threats to join or create new parties as a result of the removal of Tony Abbott as prime minister. The loss of “hundreds” of votes
It appears Malcolm Turnbull has studied the consensus methods of the Bob Hawke prime ministership which is all to the good, from The Age: Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has called a mini-summit for later this week, inviting leaders from the worlds of business, unions, community organisations and think tanks to discuss the state of the
It just gets more and more bonkers, from the AFR comes Maurice Newman: …”I am not in favour of renewable energy subsidies, I am not a believer in man-made global warming and I believe in smaller government. To be fair about it, he is the Prime Minister and he’s entitled to choose who he wants and
The Australian elite have fully embraced pop-psychology as their primary economic narrative and if it continues it will sink the nation and its new government. New examples appear every day with the drover’s dog telling Malcolm Turnbull to be “positive” and repair “confidence”. To wit from the AFR: It is not going to be the all
Some whacky stuff from Environment Minister Greg Hunt via The Australian: Mr Hunt has created the Office of Climate Change and Renewables Innovation within the Environment Department, which will bring together all climate change and renewable energy programs from across government. …Mr Hunt said there were no changes to existing policies. The new office would reinforce
From The Australian comes the Morrison vision for reform of the national economy: In his first interview as Treasurer, Mr Morrison said the Turnbull government would focus on “starting” the economy rather than simply “stopping” things like the carbon and mining taxes. “Spending as a percentage of GDP is at 26 per cent. That is not sustainable,” Mr
So much for going gently into that good night, from the AFR: Liberals still seething over last week’s leadership spill are vowing to target Treasurer Scott Morrison, who has found himself the ongoing focus of Tony Abbott’s ire. Mr Abbott accused Mr Morrison of “badly misleading” the Australian people after Mr Morrison said last week that he
Quite a lot apparently, from Forexlive: Australia ANZ Consumer Confidence 114.5, up 8.7% w/w (prior 105.3) For the week ended September 20 … the week we got a new PM That’s the biggest rise in a week on record ANZ comments: Bounce in confidence was broad-based In particular, views on economic conditions over the next
It’s not scorching but Malcolm Turnbull has turned around the Coalition’s electoral fortunes for now, from The Australian: The Coalition’s primary vote jumped five points to 44 per cent, its highest level since November 2013 and only 1.6 points below the result at the last election. Labor’s primary vote tumbled four points to a three-month
From Fairfax: As expected. Our new PM, Malcolm Turnbull, quietly let Maurice Newman’s position as chairman of the Business Advisory Council expire Saturday night while everyone’s focus was on his ministerial chess play. It leaves the BAC without a chairman for now, according to the council’s web site. But the real test of Turnbull’s intentions
From the ABC: Mr Frydenberg said he’d work hard with northern Australians, to get the best possible outcome for their communities and industry. “The skill set I bring from my previous treasury portfolio, and before that, as the parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister for deregulation, these will be very helpful skill sets for this
From the AFR: Malcolm Turnbull has put a long overdue bomb under the Coalition, not just clearing out dead wood or Abbott loyalists but repositioning the government on key policy areas and, as a result, stealing the future from Labor. The sheer scale of Turnbull’s renovations is breathtaking. There is no sense of the constraint
The magnificent David Murray has ramped up pressure on Malcolm Turnbull to abandon the Abbottalyptic ban on super concession reform. From the AFR: The current framework for superannuation tax concessions was “particularly harmful” to low income people, he said. “In order to deliver value to the Australians in the superannuation system, policymakers will have to come to
From Fairfax: A nationwide ReachTel Seven-West poll of just under 3300 voters taken on Tuesday night showed voters were flooding back to the Coalition under its new management, with Mr Turnbull catapulting ahead of Labor’s Bill Shorten as preferred prime minister with a lead of 61.9 per cent to 38.1 per cent. The Coalition’s support has also rebounded
There has been a lot of invective heaped upon Bozo Joe Hockey in recent days by the loon pond right as it sought to save its inept prime minister. Mr Hockey is clearly going to lose his job but it’s worth exploring whether Bozo was as bad as he’s being made out to be (and
From the AFR: Nationals Leader Warren Truss and deputy Barnaby Joyce are due to announce full details of a deal after Question Time on Tuesday, which sees major wins for the Nationals, including an about face on the effects test in competition legislation. But Nationals sources have told the Financial Review that central to the agreement
The great political wanker of his time has bowed out, from the AFR: A bitterly disappointed Tony Abbott has bowed out, blaming the media and treacherous colleagues for his downfall while vowing to do nothing to destabilise Malcolm Turnbull. Mr Abbott, who lost Monday night’s leadership ballot by 54 voteds to 44 votes, said he was ousted by “poll-driven panic”
From Tim Toohey at Goldman Sachs: The Prime Minister elect is promising a “thoroughly liberal government” promoting freedom of “individuals and markets” and promising to consult and explain the case policy change. It is clear that the Prime Minister-elect is targeting business confidence and individual freedom, in a step to reinvigorate the prominence of the ‘small
Your new PM: Julie Bishop remains deputy PM.
From the AFR: Malcolm Turnbull has confirmed he is challenging Prime Minister Tony Abbott for the leadership of the Liberal party. “I met with the Prime Minister and advised him that I would be challenging him for the leadership of the Liberal Party” “And we need a different style of leadership…A style of leadership that
