*ABC Pic: Senator Scott Ryan and the family Bible …
The Week …
A small figure struggles up the steps of the Vice Regal mansion in Canberra as a new week in politics begins. Senator Scott Ryan, a king-maker in Malcolm Turnbull’s rise to power is about to become Cabinet assistant secretary. Ryan carries a Bible bigger than Kelly O’Dwyer’s baby.
Another swearing in begins at Yarralumla, an estate acquired to provide visiting royals with lodgings as well as providing shelter to our Governors-General, lest they have to sleep rough like the homeless millions streaming out of Syria today or women fleeing domestic violence. No better place could there be to launch a Ministry for the 21st century.
Further ironies assail staunch republican Malcolm Turnbull as he acts genial host and enlightened cabinet-maker while Tony Abbott’s knight, Sir Peter Cosgrove prepares to make himself useful, as best he can, on a salary of $425,000 and only a very limited personal staff.
To assist their host, some godly folk amongst the new ministers do a quick check of product labels in the kitchen to ensure, for the sake of Cory Bernardi’s senate committee at least, that no halal certified products may be sponsoring terrorism amongst the catering.
A quick sweep of the shrubbery has the AFP and ASIO ensure that there are no eco-Green warriors lurking under leaves amidst the skinks and snakes. Left-leaning saboteurs could leap out with copies of section 487.2 of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 to commit acts of ‘lawfare.’
Dewy-eyed with hope and hay fever, guests stand around dazedly blinking in the spring sunshine. Turnbull fawns delightedly over O’Dwyer, baby Olivia and photographs are taken of him surrounded by women. His surname Tang Bao, in China is a sweet custard-filled bun.
…a shark amidst the minnows
Monday’s swearing in is a big day for Turnbull and for the nation. Born today is the ‘Sugar bomb’ or ‘Sweet dumpling’ dynasty as Chinese scribes translate Turnbull’s name. Oozing charm, patrician manners and a dab of Clive Christian No. 1 Pure Perfume for Men, the ebullient Turnbull mingles, smiles and shows his teeth, a shark amidst the minnows.
‘Team Australia,’ is dead, buried, cremated. So crass. So last Prime Minister. Turnbull, seldom short of a word, promises a team exuding ‘strong, confident, imaginative and innovative leadership for the country’s future in a rapidly changing global economy.’
It is as if he is launching a new corporation. Where are compassion, empathy, social justice or any of the qualities which build community; make us human? Ominously he includes the phrase ‘welfare net’ for those many of us who can’t quite manage on the high wire of independent living and who must fall upon the cold, stinting charity of the cost accountant.
If all is not pitch perfect on Monday, Sugar bomb has other sour notes in his history. Associates, former employees and many in his own party eagerly volunteer some saltier alternative epithets for Malcolm Turnbull, whose conduct of his career path to becoming Australia’s 29th Prime Minister has attracted more than a few critics.
…a chest-beating Tarzan …
In 2009, Dr Brendan Nelson discerned a narcissistic personality disorder in Turnbull, ‘he says the most appalling things and can’t understand why people get upset. He has no empathy.’
Annabel Crabb, who once harvested yabbies and prepared pomegranates with the old silvertail, saw the Turnbull of old as ‘a chest-beating Tarzan more comfortable with grand gestures than the realities of political compromise.’
Fifteen years ago even Turnbull’s spin doctor Mark Westfield noted his boss could turn.
‘Perhaps more than any person in Australian corporate circles, Malcolm Turnbull’s name inevitably provokes reaction. He can be courteous, charming and flattering one minute, and bursting with dark volcanic rage the next, depending on whether or not he is getting his way in negotiations.’
For one glorious morning all discord is briefly forgotten, however, as Sir Peter Cosgrove swears in Sugar Bomb’s ‘Ministry for the 21st Century’, a Mad-men type name for his brand which Turnbull has spun to excite our expectations for change and innovation while hinting at his hopes for its longevity and to disguise its conservatism.
His new crew is only as new as it can be, given the circumstances of the recent palace revolution that has enthroned him and the constraints of available talent. But anything after Abbott looks innovative and hopes are raised prematurely in the press gallery.
… blood on the carpet …
There is, alas, already a bit of blood on the carpet. Kevin Andrews takes his sacking from Defence personally, even announcing his dumping before sweet dumpling could announce it himself. It is an extraordinary breach of decorum and political judgement.
Bruce Billson also whinges and refuses to be demoted to Cities. Billson ends up licking his wounds in his North Frankston office and wondering what he’ll do for a Christmas drink this year. At, least, Frank Madafferi will still send him a case of grappa.
Corey Bernardi may start another party or join forces with Bob Day’s Family First. He claims ‘the Liberal brand has been damaged in the coup’ and warns darkly of right wing retaliation against the wickedly left wing Turnbull, vastly overrating the power of the lunatic right.
Malcolm’s picks are ‘a new broom’ and ‘a talented bunch’ or that is the spin. In reality, Turnbull’s decisions are political. He owes the National Party for its support during his coup. He must also stitch up his foes and reward his cronies. Apart from these minor concerns the new PM has a finger or two in the ministry pie.
He insists that every minister is selected on merit, shaming and putting on notice both Hunt and Dutton. He hits back at his internal detractors daring them to put up or shut up,
… a reward for failure and proof that the age of entitlement is not over yet …
‘No-one could suggest that this Cabinet, this ministry has been assembled on any basis other than merit,’ he tells the AM program Monday morning. Unlike the deposed Joe Hockey, Turnbull has a record of success in litigation.
Critics call Turnbull’s government ‘Abbott-lite.’ Some already call the PM as Malcolm Abbott or Tony Turnbull, overlooking the silver tail and tongue. While he has some new faces amongst his galley slaves and while Eric Abetz, Kevin Andrews, Joe Hockey have been jettisoned overboard, there is no change of course.
Hockey it is said will get Ambassador to Washington, a reward for failure and proof that the age of entitlement is not over yet for the failed treasurer. He will, however, be ‘up in class’ as they say in horse racing, and some heavy lifting of his game will be needed if he is to keep up with diplomatic corps thoroughbreds.
Sympathy for the underdog may be taken too far. Joe’s affability is touted as being all he needs to make him a top ambassador. Many, however, like Bill Shorten, are stumped by the logic of the appointment and fear it may be read as a calculated insult.
‘You can’t sort of buy peace within your divided party by treating the post to Washington – one of our key foreign policy relationships – some sort of consolation prize for a treasurer who has taken Australia nowhere for two years.’
…antagonised the senate crossbench…
Some new ministers, such as the special minister for state are not unblemished. Mal Brough, no stranger to controversy, has already antagonised the Senate crossbench by attacking micro parties. Arthur Sinodinis still has questions to answer at ICAC.
Most of the ministers who created problems in the Abbott government, moreover, retain their jobs. Abbott duds Dutton and Hunt ‘the great climate change intellectual of the cabinet’ according to Brandis, on Sunday, are unlikely to find form under Turnbull.
More moderate though it may appear, yet younger and with added women, the all-new ministry is cobbled together from some shop-worn components and may quickly fall short of the sort of performance in the sales pitch Turnbull is giving it. Tony Abbott, of course, sees no difference in the political complexion of the new line up.
In his first interview since his Manly surfside snipe at Scott Morrison, Tony Abbott’s promise of ‘no wrecking, no undermining and no sniping’ is abandoned as he tells News Corp on Sunday that Turnbull’s palace revolution had led to no change in policy direction. The failed Abbott government in exile gives Turnbull its tick of approval. Or its kiss of death.
‘Border protection policy the same, national security policy the same, economic policy the same, even same-sex marriage policy the same, and climate change policy the same. In fact, the rhetoric is the same.’ The former PM claims with more than a touch of overstatement.
Yet the Turnbull government will continue to steer hard right even on the republic. Let small l Liberals cry into their kale smoothies, if they join the Greens, we’ll get their preferences, says Good Prince Mal, the eternal pragmatist.
…cutting more spending…
Mal’s ministry are not all newbies. Also being re-sworn old hands Pyne and Morrison are rewarded for their loyalty by being fitted up with new ministries to keep them under control. Morrison immediately goes troppo opposing Turnbull’s pause of the tax reform white paper. The new treasurer will be white papering his way to cutting more spending, against all expert advice and in the face of warnings that such a tack will hasten an approaching recession.
‘Cuts’ Morrison could be picking a fight, undermining Turnbull in the party room with an Abbott era approach to the economy. He is already showing more than a tad of his maniacal defiance of reason that saw him king of our nation’s shame, the offshore detention centres. Who may forget his rabid, foam-flecked attack on the Human Rights Commissioner, Gillian Triggs, for daring to pursue the legality of having children in custody?
Other makeovers include former apprentice Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg and Simon Birmingham who inherits Pyne’s abortive higher education reforms, an Augean stable of steaming ordure.
Communications is hived off to Mitch Fifield who inherits a mare’s nest of an NBN which is 18 billion over budget, four years behind schedule and already obsolete thanks to Turnbull’s turn at the helm.
Some new ministers jump the gun. Frydenberg spills the worst kept secret in the coalition’s disastrous, ecocidal, uneconomic, mine construction saga a day later by talking of plans to spend five billion, euphemistically ear-marked ‘Northern Project’ on the railway that will help Adani and Gina Rinehart get their newly mined coal to port. It is another step backwards.
Australia will subsidise coal, petroleum and gas consumption by $41 billion in 2015, the International Monetary Fund said last month, the equivalent of 2 per cent of our annual economic output. Australians would prefer the money to be spent on Education and Health, according to recent polls.
His hands will be tied…
P-plate Treasurer ‘Lead-foot’ Morrison will be left to explain how a $5 billion splurge on a railway for your mates is in the nation’s best interests. Or not. Expect this to be embargoed as commercial in confidence, operational, or given its terminus, an on water matter. His hands will be tied because the sum is already committed expenditure.
Turnbull has created a new Minister for Cities and the Built Environment in Jamie Briggs, who will not be in cabinet but who will work with Environment Minister Greg Hunt, sharing his stash of magic mushrooms, hashish and the other natural hallucinogens which inspired his Direct Action stoner scam.
The drugs seem potent. By Friday, high as a kite, Hunt has bobbed up in a presser claiming we have the ‘best and cheapest carbon emission reduction scheme in the world.’ He boasts also of having vetoed Abbott’s plan to hold an inquiry into the BOM. If only he’d done the same with Direct Action. On Friday, China announced the starting date to its national emissions trading scheme.
We have a minister for cities but no minister for disabilities, mental health or housing. Perhaps these will manage themselves in the 21st century, or perhaps the cabinet is too big already without adding extra bleeding hearts. Yet a new analysis of the government’s ‘welfare-to-work reforms’ under Labor and Liberals alike has found that they failed to increase single parent employment in Australia. Instead up to 150,000 disadvantaged single parent families and their children are pushed into poverty.
One Nat is cheesed off. His party’s one cabinet position short, he reckons. David Gillespie, member for Lyne tells ABC Rural his party should technically have gained an extra seat in the Cabinet. Just add water … Turnbull would counsel him. He has added water to Agriculture to stitch up a deal with the Nats. The deal draws David Marr’s criticism. ‘He wanted to be Prime Minister, but was it worth the Murray-Darling basin?’
…another ruthless pragmatist at the helm…
The real cost of Turnbull’s seizure of the Liberal Party leadership will be worn by the nation as it suffers another ruthless pragmatist at the helm, a silver-tongued, silvertail whose sales pitch of optimism, rational conversation and all his other progressive sounding buzz words cannot disguise his readiness to do whatever it takes to appease the conservatives and satisfy the expectation of his party’s backers in business and finance. Having waited five years to win victory, Turnbull will do everything in his power to shore up his support. And on past form his leadership style will rankle.
The nation deserves more than new wine in old bottles; showmanship and broken promises. In the end it doesn’t really matter how big the Bible that you take to the swearing in if your ministry promises to be as mean, as unfair and unreal as that of the government it replaces.
• ABC: Braddon MP Brett Whiteley elevated to Government Whip
• Phil Coorey, AFR: Andrew Nikolic joins Coalition calls to rein in penalty rates Tasmanian federal Liberal MP Andrew Nikolic has added to the growing calls from within government for a review of weekend penalty rates, arguing the current regime is curbing job creation and business growth, especially in tourism and hospitality.Mr Nikolic, who holds the seat of Bass, said many tourism and hospitality businesses in his seat “are constantly telling me they won’t open during periods where high penalty rates apply, because they can’t make a quid”.
• AFR: Vic government in last minute change to port sale rules
• Michael Mansell: National Reform Summit in Canberra misses out small business operators. Tasmanian Aboriginal mutton birders completely ignored. Summit is elitist, says Michael Mansell Michael Mansell says the National Reform Summit in Canberra has not been inclusive and smaller industries most in need of support have been sidelined. Mr Mansell said, “Every year for the last 150 years, Aboriginal people in Tasmania have eked out a living from mutton birding. Up until the end of the 1940’s, around 500 Aboriginal people went mutton birding. Today the industry employs 90 people across the Bass Strait islands for a 6 week period. To survive, it needs help. Prime Minister Turnbull would not even be aware of our existence, which is probably also the case with Tasmania’s Federal politicians. We never hear from them. They never visit us during the season to see what we do.
