Our Fearless Leader

Guest Author Uncategorized

The ever-generous Urbanwronski has again permitted the republication of his latest analysis at The Pub. As always, many thanks.

Express Tribune

Want to know what Brexit means for Australia? Looking for a bit of leadership from the Prime Minister in response to Britain’s latest financial and economic crisis? Worried Britain will drag us all into a global recession? Don’t ask Malcolm Turnbull. He’s just the Prime Minister.

Tony Jones made the leadership mistake on Q&A when he asked Turnbull why he was soft on same-sex marriage. Why was he pushing ahead with a plebiscite even though he personally favoured a conscience vote?

Turnbull said he was “sticking by the decision the Coalition party room made under Tony Abbott.”

The PM neglected to mention that the party room was augmented with a rump of National Party members herded in at the last minute. His capitulation endorses a flaky evasion. Abbott’s move was nothing more than a cynical stalling tactic.

No update either for viewers that negotiations are currently underway to ensure that members of Turnbull’s government, should it be returned, will be able to vote against their electorates on marriage equality. Senators Eric Abetz and Cory Bernardi have already said they will do this.

As Penny Wong puts it, “Malcolm Turnbull didn’t give supporters of marriage equality a free vote before the election, but will give opponents of marriage equality a free vote after the election.”

What came next is the most amazing concession of the campaign so far. Turnbull is the type of leader to lead from behind. He’s only the boss. “I am the PM but I’m not the dictator,” he said.

“Some people like the idea of prime ministers that ignore their colleagues. I don’t agree with that. I’m a strong believer in traditional cabinet government and that means compromise.”

Now it’s Leigh Sales turn to make the same mistake on Friday’s 7:30. Not that she’s really interested. It is, after all, another opportunity for the PM to campaign. And in the end it’s all about the show. She asks him what it means. Means? He fetches up one fence-sitting word, “uncertainty.”

The U-word has bolted before he realises, to his horror, he mustn’t frighten the horses. Quickly he claims uncertainty as a virtue – and the high moral ground. Who knows where he’s headed? Give him a minute or thirty and he’ll give you the full Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

“Uncertainty …” he begins, lifting an unequivocal bottom jaw.

Sales looks worried.

It is a vintage Turnbull display. Patronise. Preach. Change gear. Hasn’t he told us to “embrace uncertainty?” he chides, smugly, channelling entrepreneur-Mal, his inner shill, hopelessly addicted to start-up technobabble and all manner of other 21st Century con-artist jargon?

We are being told off for not being quite with it. He’s gazumped us. Everyone can see how embracing his inner uncertainty has worked for Malcolm, the ditherer. Not that he is letting Ms Sales speak. She does try to get to the heart of the nonsense about embracing change by spelling out some of the changes in terms of jobs lost to technology, EU migrant workers and open markets.

I just wonder if that message that you’re making perhaps scares and alienates people?

Turnbull seizes the opportunity to riff on the word immigration in what Sales is saying.

The EU Schengen agreement permitting passport free travel is in his sights. It reminds him to sound like a toddler potty training manual,

“…how really important it is for the Government to be seen to control its borders.”

Borders secure, he’s straight off up the garden path of how his government offers stability, a brilliant economic plan of bribing rich people with tax cuts and its Liberal psychic powers.

“I think we could be looking at a period of some uncertainty. And it’s a reminder, Leigh, of a point I often make: that we are living in a period of rapid economic change, we’re living in a period of volatility and we have to embrace that. We have to recognise that we’ve got to make sure that we have stable leadership, an economic plan, stable government, so that we are able to deal with the unforeseen.

Luckily, Leigh is not up to challenging him. Turnbull’s government is one big factional in-fight. And it shows. In three years our economy has gone from best performing in the world to about fifteenth place now as a result of internal conflict and utter confusion over ideology and economic policy.

Abbott outsourced most Liberal policy to the IPA leaving himself an incoherent bag of Trump-style US clichés about small government being good for you, a dash of flag-waving rabid nationalism, authoritarianism, and the dog-whistling politics of division. Malcolm Turnbull has done his best to pick up all of these but hasn’t quite got them all in the bag. Nor will he ever while Abbott survives.

If Fizza Turnbull were to win the election, on current predictions, his is unlikely to be a big enough victory to give him the authority to command the stability which he claims to offer. Abbott’s already got his dibs on a return to cabinet as Minister of Defence. But wait, there’s more – of course.

Turnbull bangs on about his economic plan. His government’s economic plan is neither economic nor a plan but rather a magic pudding mix that serves up a rich and tasty tax cut for wealthy supporters that somehow trickles down to feed the rest of the nation by boosting productivity and prosperity in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The evidence for stability is just as weak. Since John Howard’s shrewd brew of nationalism, neoliberalism – once called economic rationalism – and social liberalism was spoilt by WorkChoices, the Liberal Party at both state and federal level is beset by an existential crisis. Tony Abbott’s false promises to keep Labor’s social program added “untrustworthy” into whatever the Liberals stand for.

In federal politics, the Liberal Party has given the nation two prime ministers in three years, fifteen changes in the cabinet, and a smorgasbord of funding scandals. Right now the word is that the party is struggling to find the cash to fund its last furious final volley of TV attack ads. They could save their money. People will be watching the Brexit fall-out news.

None of this is followed up. Mr Stability Turnbull is left to dip into his usual grab bag of vapid platitudes, Mal-splaining, and some special name-dropping for the occasion.

OK, he says, he did contact David Cameron to “console” the British PM ahead of his resignation. But he’s not prepared to share with viewers anything that might have been said. This is a pity. Both have a fair bit in common in terms of their capture by the right wing of their divided parties.

The PM’s message is “nothing to see here,” just as his deputy, Julie Bishop has earlier advised Australians to “keep calm and carry on.” Whistle a happy tune. Don’t mention the class war.

To be fair Sales does not exactly press the Prime Minister for answers. That’s not her job. Her show’s more of a foot-rub and back-scratch than a quest for information. Hold her guest to account for his promises, his evasions and lies? She can and does ask the odd good question, but these tend to be batted away and never followed up. Or Turnbull bloviates and then answers his own question.

Friday he gets away with murder. Turnbull crows that her show had revealed Shorten to be a liar about Coalition moves to privatise Medicare. It is a ScoMo moment, a cheap and demeaning gotcha that does nothing but lower the tone and the PM’s credibility – and insults the intelligence of her audience. Does he imagine we don’t know that he set up a 20-member, $5 million privatisation taskforce which he was forced to cancel at the 11th hour?

And despite his strenuous denials, the outsourcing of Medicare payments went to federal Cabinet.

Turnbull bags Shorten for not putting his hand on his heart, a stunt Sales dredged up in the previous night’s programme straight out of the Ray Hadley 2GB playbook. It proves nothing but the depths to which political debate has fallen. Sales doesn’t seem to mind to be used in this way. It’s as if she’s happy to be an accomplice in Turnbull’s long-practised evasion of leadership and truth.

Now interviews don’t have to be combative. To help the ABC here are a few of the many questions remaining unasked which could help Turnbull to lead, to act like a Prime Minister.

How could the pundits get it so wrong? Is Brexit part of some more deep-seated popular protest against conservative politics; a rebellion against the politics of division, exclusion and increasing social and economic inequality? To Rafael Behr, Brexit sounds,

“…more like a howl of rage and frustration by one half of the country against the system of power, wealth and privilege perceived to be controlled by an elite residing, well, elsewhere.”

Are there parallels in Australia? Brexit is the repudiation of its ruling political and economic elite by half the British nation. Similarly marginalised by a rapidly diminishing share of the nation’s prosperity and excluded or alienated from real political decision-making, manipulated by a conservative mass media. could Australian voters be about to make a similar protest?

In the post-truth era style of political interview we will even phrase the questions to help our PM.

Surely we don’t have workers who have lost their jobs, their futures, their feeling of self-worth. because of our politicians’ relentless, mindless march towards globalisation and free trade?

Surely we don’t live inside a housing bubble so inflated by our banks that it is impossible for average voters to own their own homes?

Surely we don’t have politicians who are so addicted to neoliberal dogma that the concept of the people has become replaced by that of the consumer?

Surely no politician would claim that the politics of economic austerity will solve everything, while tax cuts for the wealthy and the business classes will ensure that prosperity trickles upward?

Surely none of these are true, Malcolm Turnbull wants us to reassure us. He’s calling Brexit a message of “optimism.”

“In this age of technological change, in this age of the internet, in this age of globalism, why would we remain part of Europe for no reason other than geographic proximity at a time when technology has abolished geography?”

Whatever desperate, far-fetched spin our PM may choose to employ to fend off reality, there is an inescapable sense that the writing is on the wall for neoliberal governments everywhere. What is clear is that the free trade agreements and treaties that underpin the now diminished European Community have been tried and found wanting in Britain, and that other nations may well follow.

What is certain, despite everything that our PM has left unsaid, is that Brexit puts the skids under the global financial system. Expect instability, it is true. but don’t expect leadership from him. There is no point in his evading responsibility and everything to be gained by taking us into his confidence. But that would require a capacity to take command and an as yet unseen capacity to communicate. Brexit may be the end of him.

720 thoughts on “Our Fearless Leader”

  2. Jennifer Wilson on leyonhjelm:

    Leyonhjelm is outraged that The Chaser’s stunt upset his wife, yet he was seemingly oblivious to the upset caused to women, girls, and men who had to attempt to explain to their children the slogans on the van next to their tent. One grandfather round these parts took to every van he saw with a can of black spray paint, so fed up was he with having to see the denigrating and misogynist garbage every time he went on the highway with his grandchildren. But according to the Senator, this man is an unsophisticated wowser with no sense of humour who has chosen to be offended.

    Well, Senator, if the tiara fits…

    https://noplaceforsheep.com/2016/06/30/the-senator-the-camper-vans-the-chaser/

    • We see too many of these vans here. This area attracts grubby types who like to park these filthy (in every way) vehicles at local beaches and camp there because it’s free and they are too tight to pay fees at caravan parks.

      I take a bit of consolation knowing they are all extremely old, in poor condition mechanically and in the bodywork, and won’t be with us much longer. A few more nights in the salt spray at a beach and some of them will end up as a heap of rust on the ground.

      A better reason for banning them would be their condition. I don’t know how they get through rego checks, they are in such poor shape. Some of their occupants must risk carbon monoxide poisoning, judging by the clouds of fumes most of them belch as they chug along. I don’t know how they survive a highway trip, I wouldn’t want to risk driving one the few metres to the end of my street.

    • Should implement the Cresso solution
      No standing between 11pm and 6am and 4 hour parking at all other time

  5. My apologies to Sid and Sod – I have been very busy for the past few days and have neglected them shamefully.

    From Wednesday:

    And from this morning:

    *oops*

  12. SBS is showing some Nigella Lawson.

    Her first series, Nigella Bites (1999 – 2000) is absolutely brilliant. She wasn’t quiet so ebullient in the later series.

  14. Bananas: “42 killed in Istanbul – how sad! No Australians – damn, that”s bad!”

  15. Robocall from Fizza.

    I hung up.

    How wonderful to be living in a seat that has suddenly become of great importance to a government that has never shown the least interest, until three weeks ago.

  17. Leone,

    Rather a brilliant strategy by Oakeshott. He said he deliberately stayed under the radar until the last minute, forcing the Coalition (he hoped, and as it turned out) to mount a last-minute, panic response.

    Took ’em completely by surprise.

    For what it’s worth, my darling sister reports that the Burwood Westfield Coffee Bean poll shows a win for Labor in Reid. She says it’s always been accurate in the past, but this time Labor has moved solidly into majority.

    • Also – Rob doesn’t have the finances for a long campaign. Clever strategy helps a lot.

      The government is just flailing around, spending a fortune on advertising and on dragging as many high profile Liberals – and Bananaby – into Cowper as they can to try to persuade us to vote for Pruneface. Bringing Mike Baird in was just a joke. It looks like he didn’t get to visit any of the big new items the local Nats are claiming the credit for – the new uni, the hospital extensions, the GP super clinic, the Pacific Highway works and more – because it was all won by Oakeshott and financed by the Rudd and Gillard governments. All the Nats have done is …. er …… thinking …..thinking ….. er ……

    • Probably much the same, even with the redistribution. Some of Paterson has been moved into Lyne, and Bob Baldwin was a useless Liberal MP. Much like the Hartsuyker/Cowper situation.

  19. Whatever Rob does when / if he wins, he’ll be much better than Heartsucker.

  21. This is not a polling article, but its just gone live and mentions the poll in passing

    It’s 50-50 (i.e. a swing of 3.5 since the last election)

    http://www.afr.com/brand/chanticleer/investors-have-reasons-to-be-positive-about-the-year-ahead-20160630-gpvqng
    Jun 30 2016 at 6:59 PM

    “First, there is a good chance that the Coalition government led by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will be returned with a reduced majority. But that outcome would go against recent polling. The latest Fairfax Ipsos poll released on Thursday forecast a swing of 3.5 per cent against the LNP and a hung parliament, with neither side holding a majority. But a range of polls from different companies fuelled mistaken expectations in recent state elections in Victoria, South Australia and Queensland. Also, the Fairfax Ipsos poll was done between Monday and Wednesday, just before an apparent swing back to the government.”

  22. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/30/brexit-disaster-decades-in-the-making a good read

    http://www.politico.eu/blogs/spence-on-media/2016/06/brexit-eu-referendum-rupert-murdochs-support-for-boris-johnson-comes-with-a-warning/ (since I tweeted that, looking less likely Boris will be PM)

    http://www.politico.eu/article/luxleaks-whistleblowers-get-suspended-jail-terms/

    http://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-pushes-us-closer-to-germany/

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-30/turf-wars-young-liberals/7553020

  23. On the Liberal Half-hour, even Lois Lane is talking about 50-50 on marginal Lib seats.

    The polling for the Libs must be horrendous.

  24. If ipsos is 50-50 then that gives me some hope after all the shit that has been thrown at us by the media.

    • Same here. I feel a bit relieved that in this election campaign, it hasn’t blown out toward the Liberals in the end like I feared it would.

      There are some other polls still to go before Saturday, but that at least one major one has the Labor 2pp vote with a 5 as its first digit is reassuring.

  27. I noted a couple of the regular posters reflecting on their personal votes, so I decided to regale the pub with my experience and reasoning.

    I voted below the line in the Senate and went through the whole 116. The competition for my last vote is invariably intense, but I am happy to declare that this year Danny Nalliah was the winner of that prized position. I did nearly outsmart myself as I found that I had reached 117, so I had to check back and correct when I found that I had omitted a number in the 90s.

    My motive apart from bloody-mindedness is my desire to use my minimal voting power to choose between worse and worser, and help elect the less bad. I don’t think we can predict who among the micros will survive, when we get down to the counts for the last one (or two) senators. I used and then modified Cluey Voter and had to review my initial distribution when I was horrified to discover that the Health Party is in fact the anti-health party, so they went down among the political right wing extremists.

    • Thank goodness you picked up on the Health Party.

      They are anti-vax nutters, getting pole position in NSW will win them some donkey votes, but I hope not enough.

  28. Dragoness was all fired up but Bill buried her with “I just want to answer your question.”, when she interrupted when she got no satisfaction (cue the Stones).

    The last bit was excellent: “If you lose will you stand down?”. “Will you ask Mr Turnbull the same question?”

    Zinger!

  30. I’ve said it before but I like Mutti, notwithstanding her policies. Brexit.

    A bel now with Waffles. Let … us … see!

  31. Just got robocalled by Turnbull again! Makes 4 times plus JBish! Insane!

    I am in Boothby—is that in play? Good if so.

  32. This little black duck

    Mutti ? Mutti Merkel ? As what she is (apparently) sometimes called.

  33. From chief Turnbull fanfic writer Mark Kenny

    Fairfax-Ipsos poll challenges a growing confidence Malcolm Turnbull will win comfortably on Saturday.

    A more honest rewrite

    Fairfax-Ipsos poll fails to validate the bullshit that we’re pushing on voters.

  34. I hope that as Shorten left the studio after that appalling interview with Leigh Sales he asked her if she had alternate plans for future employment if Labor wins the election!

    Labor should feel no guilt from having their own “night of the long knives” such as Howard did after gaining government and as Abbott did in 2013.

    A good clean out from top to bottom of Lib sympathisers and operatives from every single public sector department that is paid for by the long suffering taxpayer is long overdue!

    The conservatives love to indulge in full on corruption of every part of government to give them the best chance of governing without restrictions as to how they enrich the !% at the top end at the expense of the multitude at the bottom end.

    That’s us, by the way!

    • Bill has class.

      Want to see something else, check tonight’s Liberal Party Half-hour/.

  35. Lucy, daughter and grandchild are doing meet-and-greet. Waffles needs all the support he can get. No in-law son.

    Oh, and it’s in the daughter’s house.

    Last night? Chalk and cheese.

    I’ll stick with it. I have few “Drink!” on my card.

  36. And a robocall from a nurse? saying why she was voting for Mark Ward: penalty rates.

  37. “Malcolm, I told you what to cook and how!”

    OK, Malcolm, it seems I have to supervise (rigid face).

    Would you trust a pretend cook?

  38. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/fairfaxipsos-poll-dead-heat-on-election-eve–coalition-faces-shock-loss-20160630-gpvmom.html

    https://www.gov.uk/guidance/carbon-budgets

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/28/uk-ministers-world-leading-carbon-emissions-reduction-target-climate-change a bit of actual good news from the UK

  39. More like a war than an interview.

    The two look so distant. No bonhomie at all.

    Annabel looks quite stunned.

    Another disaster for He-who-has-a-plan..

  41. “This was one of Lucy’s specials.”

    O h, dear red squirrel!

  42. Seriously? Kenny wrote this?

    Fairfax-Ipsos poll challenges a growing confidence Malcolm Turnbull will win comfortably on Saturday.

    What a tangled way to say that the ‘growing confidence’ was misplaced in the first instance.

    He must be contractually obliged to write “Malcolm Turnbull will win comfortably” in every article this campaign, and this is the only way he could work it in this time.

  43. Just posting this photo because you can tell this is a man deeply in love with his partner. I’m not even reading the story that goes with it. I’m trying to stay up later to get into practice for Saturday night, but I don’t think I’m going to succeed.

  44. Annabel put on the “I don’t believe you face”. Not that he noticed.

  45. A while ago one of the MSM pack had a go at Shorten for dragging his family into the campaign. I’ve noticed that line of attack has gone, dead and buried since Fizza started dragging his wife, daughter and grandkids everywhere, parading the kids for the camera at every opportunity.

    • The more they play the Turnbull woman (and that is all she has been) with her two-down-generation, the more peeps will think about his relevance to contemporary society.

  47. The best part of the Mark Kenny article is the headline.
    “Fairfax-Ipsos poll: Dead heat on election eve as Coalition faces shock loss”

    Shock loss. I love that. No wonder we are being deluged with robocalls.

  48. Ipsos is based on 2013 preference flows and with Ipsos recording 27% going to vote independent in this latest poll. Their gut feeling of why Libs will is the stupid poll they ask “Who do you think will win” when they have vote the opposite in the poll.

    From Kenny.

    The final Fairfax-Ipsos poll of the 2016 election shows that with most Australians preparing to cast their votes Labor and the Coalition are locked in a 50-50 embrace based on second and subsequent preference flows recorded in the 2013 poll when Labor’s electoral support had tumbled.

    • Apparently they did do a respondent-allocated figure as well, and that came out 51-49 to the ALP. The general understanding is that Ipsos lean slightly to the right compared to other pollsters.

  50. “respondent-allocated”

    No apprehension of the current weather (= cricket bats)?

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