Now I get it

[David]

[Tannin]

Um ... well, you could have Doug Cameron ....

Hmmm .... I see your point.

--------------------------------------------

EDIT:

But let's try for a genuine moderate to lead the Liberal (sans Tories) party. You could have ... er ...

I can't think of even one. Not one who you could imagine existing happily in a party led by a Dick Hamer or a Malcom Fraser, or a Harold Holt, or a John Hewson. They have all been weeded out, replaced by the likes of Dutton and Abbott and Kelly on the one hand, and naked me-too careerist opportunists like Pyne and Bishop on the other. Menzies wouldn't have a bar of any of them.

[Jezza]

Huh?

What on earth do you mean by that Jezza? It is on the face of things an extraordinary, downright bizarre claim. Normally I'd ignore it as just some odd-ball extreme right wing stupidity of no consequence, but you are neither extreme nor stupid.

I would genuinely like to know what MT is suposed to have done to destroy the Liberal Party

Others have said it, but no-one knows why. He has no understanding of Labor issues, and no Labor values. No values at all, so far as anyone can tell, at least none that he wasn't prepared to sell out in a heartbeat if he got to be PM for another week.

Actually, now that you mention it, he does reminds me of a Labor PM, one particular one generally acknowledged as the worst Labor PM of all time and one of the worst five PM's Australia has ever had. Exactly like that ego-obsessed scoundrel Rudd, Turnbull was always far, far more interested in himself than anything else, and had a peculiar ability to appeal to voters on the opposite side of politics, no-one quite knows why (not in either case). So very like Rudd. Mind you, if you happened to find yourself sitting next to one or other of them on an aeroplane, you'd probably walk off thinking Turnbull had been interesting and pleasant company. Don't reckon you'd say that about Rudd.

But never mind all that. The big question is in what way did MT wreck the Liberal Party? That one I really want to know.

Because he wasn't a Liberal Party person. He was more interested in moulding the party in his image rather than representing the core values of the party that Menzies envisaged when he founded the party in the 1940s. You answered your own question in a way when you mentioned Turnbull was similar to Rudd with their narcissistic personalities, which is an assessment I completely agree with.

It's evident to me that Turnbull doesn't give a stuff about the party. His actions since his political demise demonstrate this with the way his son has been publicly encouraging voters to vote against the Liberals and the way he's risen through the ranks to become PM by knifing and undermining others along the way while maintaining a cleanskin image to the electorate. Turnbull and his allies undermined Abbott from day one of his prime ministership and contributed to his downfall. Abbott's weakness was too trusting of the likes of Turnbull, Pyne, Bishop and others who knifed him in the end, although Abbott himself contributed to his downfall in policy terms.

Abbott was a failure as a Prime Minister without question, so there's no point debating that, but the Liberals lost their dignity the night they knifed him. I would have preferred to have seen them voted out gracefully in 2016 rather than prolong the pain for another three years as they have now, with the likelihood they will be in opposition for a decade now. Labor will be beneficiaries of this prolonged pain and I wish them good luck and hope they can succeed for the country's sake.

The Liberals used to have the ability of unifying the "moderates" and the "conservative" factions together, something that Howard was able to do successfully, but Turnbull alienated the conservative base by crapping on them consistently and declaring that the party was never "conservative". He never did interviews with conservative leaning figures and he ignored their concerns at every point. Many Liberal voters I know who have voted for them for decades have abandoned the party and defected to other parties, because they despised Turnbull and hated the way Abbott was knifed. It was similar to the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd fiasco.

Turnbull was a failure as opposition leader in 2008-2009, and Abbott took over as leader at the time the party was suffering in the polls, yet he was able to nearly get them over the line in 2010, and then led them to a comfortable victory in 2013. I'm sure his successes of 2010 and 2013 can be attributed to Labor's instability with Rudd/Gillard, but I'm not sure it's solely down to that factor alone. Whether Abbott would have lost in 2016, no will know for certain, but he was a far better and effective election campaigner than Turnbull was so he would have gone down fighting at least. On the other hand, Turnbull was one of the worst political campaigners I've ever seen and his speech on election night was a disgrace.

We come from different worlds so we see things differently, but that's my take on the situation.

[Jezza]

^ Just so.

Realistically, they ought to split. Dutton and Abbott and co in one party (presumably merging with Bernardi's lot), Pyne, Bishop, and others in the moderate wing.

That would leave Australia with six parties: Green, Labor, Labor Lite, Liberal, Tory, and One Nation.

Or, in left-wing to right-wing order, Labor, Labor Lite, Liberal,and Tory, with the Greens and One Nation both being harder to place. The Greens have poor credentials as a genuine left-wing party - and would have poorer credentials still if there was a left-wing Labor party to bleed away their more socialist-inclined supporters, leaving them as they began in Bob Brown days as an environmental party above all else. And One Nation, Like Katter's lot, have a lot of traditional leftist policies.

This would leave us with several interesting and worthwhile coalition government possibilities.

I think Dutton, Abbott, Andrews et al are suited to the Australian Conservatives, and I wouldn't rule out defections if the fractious nature of the party continues.

I actually like your idea. At least it will give us more options and we're not bogged down by two options essentially. I feel like the two party system is slowly becoming redundant especially with big factions emerging in both major parties.

Even the Greens are seeing small factions develop as we've seen with their failures in NSW despite modest successes and progress in other states outside NSW.

[Tannin]

Just on the Greens and factions, they have very sensibly done three things these last few years:

(a) Elected a respected moderate as leader to replace the unpopular Milne.
(b) Finally got rid of their practically unelectable New South Wales Senator, Rhiannon.
(c) Moved the shouty loose cannon Hanson-Youjng out of the sensitive immigration portfolio, where she was an electoral liability, into edujcation and finance, where she has done less harm.

They have struggled in NSW for a decade or longer, and Rhiannon was a major reason for this. With her gone, they are a much improved party - more electable in the other states too. Now, if they could get rid of the equally unpopular Hanson-Young, they would be looking good. Sadly, they won't: Hanson-Young is popular with the party faithful and looks set to remain in parliament. Nevertheless, with Rhiannon gone and Di Natale providing a mature, steady hand at the top, they should at very least maintain their position.

(I'll respond to your very interesting previous post later.)

[Tannin]

Re previous post ... wow! Thankyou for posting it ... but wow!

So Abbott's knifing of Trumble was fine, but Trumble's retujrn of favour was traitorous? How do you believe that? And what about Abbott's nakedly traitorous behavior after he lost the top job?

I agree that it would have been better for Abbott to have gone to the election in 2016. That would have spared us three more years of Abbott policies under the Turnbull-Morrison government, and been such a wipeout that Labour would certainly have had at least two terms.

It is rank fantasy to imagine that Abbott had the slightest hope of winning in 2016. Abbott has a genius for virulent opposition, but has been an unmitagated disaster in every other role. No-one else in the entire history of Australian politics has destroyed no less than five Prime Ministers - count 'em: Rudd (twice), Gillard, Turnbull, and Abbott himself. That is a very special record. Even Rudd only destroyed two (himself, then Gillard) or three if you count his second coming as well. (I'd put that one down to Abbott, who ran a brilliant campaign.)

If we are going to blame Turnbull for his adult (38-year-old!) son for not supporting Scummo, well, we had best blame the loss of the same sex marriage poll on Abbott because his (adult) sister is gay.

Finally, it is absurd to pretend that Turnbull "crapped on" the conservatives in his party. Every single time there was a conflict, Turnbull tried to gently steer the party in the direction of the electorally palatable, tried to put a middle-of-the-road spin on things ... but enacted hard-right conservative policy. Every single time. I cannot think of even one single contentious major policy decision under Trumble's Prime Ministership which did not wind up favouring the hard right decisively. Not one. Energy policy. Taxation policy. Priests in schools. Same sex marriage poll. Renewables policy. Climate policy. Over and over, Turnbull talked softly softly so as not to scare the horses, but enacted hard right policy from the Liberal rump.

PS: Howard did not unite the moderates and the hard right. He oversaw a gradual but comprehensive purge of moderate influences from the Liberal Party. One by one, on Howard's watch, genuine liberals were replaced by hard-line conservatives, and Howard's policies reflected that. The truly loopy disconnect between the Liberal Party of today and the Australian electorate is squarely down to Howard's legacy.

Anyway, good to have this exchange of views. I have learned things from it, so thank you. It is always good to learn things.

[Jezza]

Turnbull knifed Peter King to gain pre-selection for the seat of Wentworth and knifed Brendan Nelson in 2008 so I have no sympathy for his political demise. Malcolm Turnbull only cared about himself and not the party he was a member of.

It doesn't excuse Abbott's actions after his knifing and he would have been better off walking away from politics the way Gillard did, but Turnbull only became Prime Minister off the back of Abbott's election success in 2010 and 2013.

I still laugh at the shocked look on Turnbull's face on the night of the 2016 election when he realised he wasn't popular with the electorate and barely scraped through to retain power for a further three years. It was a bitter blow for a man who thought he was universally loved by everyone.

Turnbull was a fraud and I was always amazed he was popular with the electorate before he came PM especially after his dismal failure as opposition leader in the Rudd years. The fact that the Liberals thought he would be a good PM was their biggest mistake.

Abbott was a failure, but Turnbull was not the answer. The Liberals consign themselves to a decade in the wilderness and it's all self-inflicted.

[HAL]

What is so funny about the shocked look on Turnbull's face on the night of the 2016 election when he realised he wasn't popular with the electorate and scraped to retain power for a three years ?

[Tannin]

I agree with most of that. Most of the more measured commentators in the press gallery were continually surprised by how readily Turnbull abandoned one principled position after another to curry favour with the right. I honestly have no idea why. Like you, I never for one moment thought that any of his "principles" were more than vague notions pressed into the service of his ambitions, and was disgusted but not in the least surprised when he threw them over, one by one.

Honestly, after seeing the casual way he knowingly crippled the biggest Australian infrastructure project since the Snowy Mountains Scheme, at vast cost to the nation for decades to come, no-one with any clue could possibly have imagined that he was anything other than a smooth-talking spiv, out for what he could get. Except the press gallery, of course, who were completely taken in by him. No idea why.

Not one of Australia's great PMs. Better than Abbott and Rudd, of course, but we have had 27 Prime Ministers better than Abbott or Rudd, 28 if we count Morrison.