Go Tone
Posted by Christopher Sheil on Sunday, November 25, 2007
Three high-profile frontbenchers from NSW Mr Turnbull, Brendan Nelson and Tony Abbott are already set to fight for the poisoned chalice of leader of the Opposition.
How good is this?
This entry was posted on Sunday, November 25th, 2007 at 11:12 PM and filed under Politics - national.
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From Andrew Leigh’s blog, sportingbet has opened a market in who will be the next Liberal Party leader. Current odds:
Malcolm Turnbull 1.55
Posted on 25-Nov-07 at 11:28 pm | PermalinkTony Abbott 3.50
Brendan Nelson 4.50
Joe Hockey 6.50
Julie Bishop 8.50
Any Other 9.00
Dana Vale 15.00
I sincerely hope Brendan Nelson gets the nod. The scrutiny would destroy him, which could only be good for the country.
Posted on 25-Nov-07 at 11:41 pm | PermalinkBrendan could easily break Dolly Downer’s all-time worst record. Could be a good cameo.
Posted on 26-Nov-07 at 12:19 am | PermalinkI hope it is Turnball. I think he is the best of the current lot. I don’t have a problem with Costello either.
The problem is that the Liberals will probably face six to nine years at minimum in opposition. So Costello might return from his hissy fit to try and ‘save the party’ in some future election while the rest have clubbed each other into electoral ridicule.
Hopefully a stint in opposition will allow the Liberals to rediscover the liberal philosophy which supposedly underpins their approach to governance. That is what needs fixing first.
Posted on 26-Nov-07 at 8:05 am | PermalinkI also wonder if Costello isn’t just trying to sidestep the fallout only to be welcomed back as a safe pair of hands in two years. Like Beasley (again, again… and again).
Posted on 26-Nov-07 at 8:09 am | PermalinkGood to see that there’s no easy first name familiarity with the aristocrat.
In his victory speech on Saturday night Turnbull told the faithful how he had the common touch. Apparently he and his dad used to go to Bondi at the weekend and mix with your normal ordinary folk … commonplace judges and surgeons, I recall him saying.
If he gets in, the Libs can sell copyright in all those L plate ads to the ALP … you know, the ones they used for Latham and Rudd. One term in parliament and he’s an alternative PM? Kind of makes a mockery of their own rhetoric about the virtues of experience.
Anyway he’s facing some potentially ugly legal proceedings over the HIH affair in 2009. Should make for good copy if he’s the opposition leader.
Posted on 26-Nov-07 at 8:13 am | PermalinkSpeaking of mixing with the common folk in Turnbull’s electorate reminds me of the time one of the children was injured at a local football match.
There wasn’t just one doctor available to help, but half a hospital’s worth. They even negotiated among themselves as to which specialist would be best, settling on the bone guy.
Malcolm also rides the buses around the eastern suburbs as part of his efforts to meet the people. I guess it worked.
Posted on 26-Nov-07 at 9:39 am | PermalinkGood on Malcolm for riding on the buses – should be more of it.
Posted on 26-Nov-07 at 9:53 am | PermalinkWould we get another republic referendum soon, with bipartisan support, if Turnbull prevails?
Posted on 26-Nov-07 at 9:56 am | PermalinkGood thought James. I suspect there would also be other issues ripe for bipartisan support. Go Malcolm, although Tone would be the best for laughs.
Posted on 26-Nov-07 at 10:01 am | PermalinkIn his victory speech on Saturday night Turnbull told the faithful how he had the common touch. Apparently he and his dad used to go to Bondi at the weekend and mix with your normal ordinary folk commonplace judges and surgeons, I recall him saying.”
Selective recall I think, Ken. He actually went on to say …”and garbos”, and used it to make a point about the healthy diversity of the area’s population, when he was a kid. Here’s the extract from his maiden speech, from which the observation is drawn:
“It [Wentworth]is not a big place. You can paddle a surf ski from one end to the other in an hour, which is not a lot longer than it takes to drive in peak traffic. Wentworth’s most endearing aspect is perhaps its least well known. Contrary to popular myth, our community is egalitarian, democratic and far from homogenous. Like many of Wentworth’s residents, I grew up living in flatsmostly rentedand, in the style of the times, with small rooms running off a long, dark corridor. I did not feel deprived of anythingapart, perhaps, from a dog. I was rarely inside. The best things in Wentworththe waves at Bondi, the ducks at Centennial Park or even the brisk nor’easter whipping down the harbour on a summer’s daytake no account of your bank balance.
Most mornings my father and I went for a swim at North Bondi Surf Club. The surf club showers were no respecters of rank or privilege. Our companions included judges and garbos, teachers and policemen and businessmen of all typesfrom shmattas in Surry Hills to high finance in Martin Place. There were surgeons whose hands saved lives and there were gentlemen whose calloused hands were used, in a rather emphatic manner, to collect debts for bookies.
Wentworth was multicultural before the term was invented.”
I don’t know what your criteria for being an “aristocrat” are, but I think it’s a deeply unconvincing appellation in Turnbull’s case. His mother was certainly a distinguished academic, but I hadn’t previously associated academia with inherited wealth and privilege and his father seems to have given most of what little he had to the blokes with “calloused hands.” He made his money himself (much of it in partnership with the much more authentically aristocratic, Nick Whitlam) vide Peter Garrett and Therese Rein. He married well perhaps but not everyone would see nobility automatically conferred by virtue of having Robert Hughes as an uncle in law.
You can certainly make a case for him being ambitious and self-promoting – bumptiously self-confident, even – but the notion that he has some sort of born-to-rule, squattocratic sense of conferred entitlement is the reverse of the reality and misses the point entirely.
More importantly, I’m disappointed that no-one has mentioned Ms Margaret May as a leadership contender. Ms May is the member for McPherson ( you have to admit that Margaret May McPherson is outstandingly alliterative) the seat that covers the iconic southern Gold Coast and as far as I’m aware she has attracted no public attention whatsoever since she entered Parliament in 1998. In fact its hard to establish whether she has said anything – on or off the record. Its no mean feat to achieve and sustain such a determinedly low profile in 21st century politics, let alone continue to persuade the voters of Tugun, Coolangatta and Robina that what they really need is total federal representative invisibility. On the other hand, her most recent ALP opponent was billed as a Gold Coast Businessman and City Councillor which does tend to generate a distinctive and not necessarily electorally-viable impression. Whatever, her success has been remarkable, if not inspirational and the Libs could well do with a significant dose of whatever shes having.
In fact, given that Kevin Rudd has just achieved an extraordinary victory which has vanished in a trice beneath blanket media and blog coverage of the apparently infinitely more important Liberal Party leadership tussle, I think we could all do with it.
Posted on 26-Nov-07 at 10:06 am | PermalinkAgree with Cam. Nelson might be okay for them, but Turnbull could be dangerous for the ALP and would therefore be the Liberals’ best option. That is, of course, if the constitutional monarchists in the party could stand it. Come to think of it, with Howard gone, now might be an excellent opportunity for them to go and get lost as well.
As James comments, having Rudd and Turnbull as the two major party federal leaders could actually make something exciting happen regarding the republican debate. Can’t help getting mental images of Rudd and Turnbull giving a joint press conference and offering bipartisan support for a republic…
Amazing the possibilities that are out there now that the fog of Howard has lifted.
Posted on 26-Nov-07 at 10:07 am | PermalinkIndescribable elation at what the country has done.
Getting on with it, Australia has seen it absolutely must have good opposition. I don’t think the Liberal Party has the constitution nor the platform nor the ideals and ideas to meet the modern world. Born in 1944, it served an immediate need, and went to perform some excellent functions along the way, ending with the clarification of what the country does and does not want. But I think it’s time has come and gone.
Of course, it will dribble on for some long while, but as it is, it’s effect is dead. Oblivion.
A reading of its regard for the environment in its platform, from its website, reveals the falsity of its conviction – it appears worthy on first glance, but it’s shot through with wriggles. This alone shows it is not up to the contemporary challenge. Nor is the ‘individual’ the epicentre of contemporary life. An individual can do nothing without another, and it’s that relationship which is where we have centrally arrived at. That ‘relationship’ must extend to embrace our natural environment, in political effectiveness – the Liberal focus doesn’t effectively allow enough of any of this.
Bring on the intelligence, drive and can-do of Turnbull, and let’s hopefully see a patched up Liberal Party hold Rudd to account, as an interim.
But we desperately need, as a country, to have another political force to rise, one clear of the baggage of the majors, for the critical decades ahead. Occasion has now presented for this to happen. It’ll be a long time of course before anything can match the big two; here’s hoping the current political ground is seen and taken for the excellent opportunity it is.
Posted on 26-Nov-07 at 11:30 am | PermalinkAbbott has thrown his hat into the ring.
I hope they elect Abbott to Leader of Opposition. Then they will undermine him for the next 18 months or so and make his life hell while he flounders between mistakes and kneejerk offensive comments to all and sundry. He deserves nothing less.
I can’t help but like Turnbull a bit more than the others. I’d say him, Petro and a few other small l’s in six years may grab a bit back.
Posted on 26-Nov-07 at 12:26 pm | PermalinkI’m not so sure Turnbull is a likely winner this time around. He’s got no real backing in NSW, and he’s the candidate most likely to make trouble for that State Liberal Party branch, pushing reform and accountability and suchlike rubbish. The NSW Right will move heaven and earth against him to keep their own power inside the Party (and I understand they’ve got good contacts in the former place).
Posted on 26-Nov-07 at 12:32 pm | PermalinkIf Barry O’Farrell is smart, he’ll do what he can to swing the votes of NSW members Turnbull’s way, in the hope of crushing his own opponents in the State Liberal Party, and recreating the structure in a Wet mould. I reckon too many of the NSW Federal Liberals have interest in a right-wing victory, though, for now.
Geoff it’s true that my comment was somewhat frivolous but I doubt that it will sway many members of the parliamentary Liberal Party. Interestingly however I’m not the only one who thinks Turnbull has a patrician air – one of the SMH cartoonists regularly draws him in top hat and morning suit.
Posted on 26-Nov-07 at 2:44 pm | PermalinkBut the mass base of the liberal Party (small business and people over 65) don’t like Bankers at all, and no matter how much he tries, he just looks too much the school ‘smarty pants’ for the down to earth folk at the local Chamber of Commerce. Howard suited the mass base of the Liberal party perfectly. None of the other contenders fit that particular ‘bill’ (too catholic in that ultra kind of way, too trendy, being female etc). I think they will be looking for a new ‘mass base’ soon, because the original won’t have much to complain about with Rudd, or else is starting to die off or enter nursing homes. The right wing fundies just scare the kiddies, and the rest will settle back and concentrate on making money and enjoying the superior wines that the French and Germans produce. That Chardonay is sooo backyard BBQ don’t you think?
Posted on 26-Nov-07 at 4:23 pm | PermalinkQuick. Tony Abbott (for experience) & Alex Hawke (for generational change). While there are still enough Libs to take the proposition seriously.
Posted on 26-Nov-07 at 7:24 pm | PermalinkThe problem with having Tony Abbott has Leader of the Opposition is that he might, just might, then become Prime Minister.
Sure, the most likely outcome is that he’ll be undermined to death by Turnbull, or that he’ll implode like Latham, but, you just can’t rule out the possbility that would one day get the keys to the Lodge.
And that thought is just too scary to contemplate.
Posted on 26-Nov-07 at 8:37 pm | PermalinkIn a tragic development for all fans of Tone “people skills” Abbott, our man has withdrawn from the race. I can’t understand how this has come to pass after the equally loveable Christopher Pearson threw his immense weight behind our candidate this morning. Maybe he should have got Kevin Andrews to be his runing mate.
Posted on 28-Nov-07 at 2:42 pm | PermalinkDid the Prime Minister elect comment today on a jock retiring? No matter; how good it was that we didn’t get the other bloke latching onto a publicity moment while telling us what we all think of him (Laws). Ahh.. the peace…
Posted on 30-Nov-07 at 5:12 pm | PermalinkThere was a letter in the paper today that summed up Lord Nelson as Andrew Peacock, without the substance.
Posted on 30-Nov-07 at 11:23 pm | Permalink