Liberal leadership declared vacant.

[stui magpie]

Turnbull played a good game here.

Buying time for Sco Mo, putting doubt on Dutton and also putting the fighteners on a lot of them I'm sure with his promise to resign if Dutton was elected which may then have bought on an early election.

[Pies4shaw]

Good to see Josh get a gig. Nice bloke. His politics are putrid but he's a very nice fellow.

[David]

[Pies4shaw]

[David]

So, any thoughts? Will this Scott Morrison prime ministership actually be a functional one, and perhaps more sensible than what has preceded it? Or are the Libs cruising for a bruising in a few months?

[Wokko]

They put in the most electable candidate and that's no surprise when you're facing electoral defeat. ScoMo might be PM for a very short time though, there has to be an election in the next 9 months and it's hard to see him pull back the Conservative vote that's bled to One Nation.

Dutton, Abbott et al might just have lost the battle but won the war.

[Pies4shaw]

It's going to be interesting.

Unlike Jezza, I think the Liberal Party can't afford to lurch further right. If they do, they'll be unelectable. They need a moderate in charge with the guts to put the far righters back in their box.

The unions, which represent a small minority of working people, have grown in voice and control in the Labor party which bothers me. Shorten has proved to have no principles at all and if he's PM the country will effectively be run by the ACTU which should frighten every sane person.

We need a moderate government, right of centre economically and left of centre socially (but only just in both cases) that will support business to grow employment and the economy to the benefit of all, while still looking after the social issues and basics. Giving the far right, far left or unions the keys to The Lodge will just send us all to hell in a handbasket.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-23/h ... s/10152542

[Wokko]

So, any thoughts? Will this Scott Morrison prime ministership actually be a functional one, and perhaps more sensible than what has preceded it? Or are the Libs cruising for a bruising in a few months?

I always saw ScoMo as a hard nosed operator able to deal with both the Moderate and Conservative sides of the Liberal Party. He's probably the only one who has any chance of bringing the party together and healing the divisions created by Turnbull. Bishop would've been Turnbull in a dress.

I think a Dutton PMship now would've been a disaster for the party and the conservatives; he would've been rolled in the election and the conservative wing would've been blamed for it. The conservatives need a palatable candidate; someone with the charisma to draw back those lost to One Nation and the Australian Conservatives and still win over enough of the centre to win an election.

Of course if the Libs lose badly anyway then Dutton will probably stroll into the leadership and have a full term to make his case.

[David]

Here's the list of the 43, by the way!

https://twitter.com/Henry_Belot/status/ ... 0906524674

[roar]

The non-ultra Liberals should let the ultras go and join the other freaks like Bernadi or Hanson. It may hurt a bit in the short term but I reckon it would be a benefit long term as the party would be more united and far more electable once the hard core element had gone.

[Pies4shaw]

So, any thoughts? Will this Scott Morrison prime ministership actually be a functional one, and perhaps more sensible than what has preceded it? Or are the Libs cruising for a bruising in a few months?

Morrison seems to be a person in whom various elements within his party have confidence. He's too far to the right for the tastes of sane people, of course, but not so far that he thinks it's better to listen too closely to the gibberings of the One-Nation escapees from the simpler parts of Queensland than to attempt to forge a broader consensus. So, he's probably going to make a good leader.

Josh is an excellent bloke and I expect he gets on well with most in the party room. He comes with the added benefit of being quite smart, so between the pair of them they can probably do the necessary bridge-building and position a policy platform that gives the LNP a solid chance of winning.

Amanda Vanstone had it right this morning (she often does) - the Duttonists couldn't even manage to work out whether they had 45 votes amongst their own mates. They plainly couldn't be allowed to run the country.

The LNP needs to get their house in order quickly, though. A lot of damage has been done and it is just possible that the electorate may not forget in any hurry that their solid, middle of the road LNP is just under half-full of people happy to support mouth-breathing racists at a pinch.

Still, if they keep Dutton and Abbott at the back of the bus, they have a show.

[Pies4shaw]

Here's the list of the 43, by the way!

https://twitter.com/Henry_Belot/status/ ... 0906524674

Andrew Hastie
Tony Pasin
Sussan Ley
Craig Kelly
Michael Sukkar
Kevin Andrews
Tony Abbott
Ian Goodenough
Nicolle Flint
Peter Dutton
Amanda Stoker
Jonathon Duniam
David Bushby
James Paterson
Eric Abetz
Concetta Fierravanti-Wells
James McGrath
Jim Molan
Slade Brockman
Dean Smith
Jane Hume
Mitch Fifield
John McVeigh
David Fawcett
Mathias Cormann
Michaelia Cash
Karen Andrews ("because this has to be resolved")
Greg Hunt
Steven Ciobo
Angus Taylor
Alan Tudge
Michael Keenan
Andrew Wallace
Scott Buchholz ("I support the office of the Prime Minister")
Jason Wood
Ross Vasta
Luke Howarth
Rick Wilson
Ted O'Brien
Zed Seselja
Andrew Laming
Ben Morton
Warren Entsch ("for Brendan Nelson")

I suspect that for most of the non-entities on that list, it's their own political death warrant.

[David]

Curious as to the extent to which Morrison will offer an olive branch to some of them. Will we see Abbott back in the ministries? Will Dutton return to the frontbench? Hope not!

[stui magpie]

They put in the most electable candidate and that's no surprise when you're facing electoral defeat. ScoMo might be PM for a very short time though, there has to be an election in the next 9 months and it's hard to see him pull back the Conservative vote that's bled to One Nation.

Dutton, Abbott et al might just have lost the battle but won the war.

He might not have 9 months. once Turnbull walks out the door, the 1 seat majority in the house of reps is gone and will take min a month to organise a by election. All it will take (I think) is another no confidence motion in the house of reps and a couple of pissed off cross benchers and we're heading for an early election.

[swoop42]

Well there goes the opportunity to use my Mutton dressed up as Dutton line on a continuous basis.

As for Morrison getting the gig instead I think Shakespeare summed it up best when he declared "A piece of shit by any other name would still smell".