Former Prime Minister Paul Keating offered current Prime Minister Kevin Rudd some advice about the then-new opposition leader: He's brilliant, he's fearless... and he's got bad judgment.
(Reported by Peter Hartcher in Saturday's Sydney Morning Herald.)
Keatings words could easily be Turnbull's epitaph. If you're going for the PM's jugular, it pays to have more evidence than a single email - as Turnbull found out, it could be forged.
The fact that Turnbull pushed it so hard - and with such personal arrogance in one or two conversations - is fully reflected in the three opinion polls released today, which show a plummet in support for Turnbull and the Liberals. Of course, he'll survive this... and could well lead the Liberals to defeat at the next election - for precisely the reasons I expected when Turnbull was on his way up.
Showing posts with label Malcolm Turnbull. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Malcolm Turnbull. Show all posts
Monday, June 29, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Aus Politics: waiting for the great leap forwards
An informal Herald poll asked which politician people would like to have to dinner:
Julia Gillard (deputy PM): 35%
None of those mentioned: 21%
Kevin Rudd (PM): 20%
Peter Costello (opposition pretender): 12%
Malcolm Turnbull (opposition leader): 11%
The results are not surprising.
Julia Gillard (deputy PM): 35%
None of those mentioned: 21%
Kevin Rudd (PM): 20%
Peter Costello (opposition pretender): 12%
Malcolm Turnbull (opposition leader): 11%
The results are not surprising.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Chris Pyne is a Liberal, after all.
Whenever an MP of the Liberal Party of Australia refers to the party as a "broad church", you know there's disunity in the parliamentary ranks.
Although it is one of the few right-wing Liberal parties in the world, its founding basis (in the 1940s) means it sometimes attracts what is known in Australia as "small-L liberals", ie those that are not really right wing.
Former Prime Minister John Howard recently referred to the party as "centre right" - which is ironic, given he led it on a lurch to the right over his 11-year tenure.
As it happens, Malcolm Turnbull, who is currently warming the leadership seat, is a small-l liberal. In a few bouts of turmoil over the past week, he elevated a couple of colleagues who were of the same ilk, Joe Hockey - now shadow Treasurer - and Chris Pyne. The latter in particular rankled the hard right and conservatives, including Pyne's fellow South Australian and factional opponent Cory Bernardi. Bernardi published a newsletter in which he mentioned that an unnamed Liberal MP once mentioned to him that he could easily have joined the Labor Party instead, but he joined the Liberals because he lived within a Liberal seat.
The nameless one was quickly identified as Pyne, and Bernardi was seen (by Turnbull at least) as fanning the flames of disunity, and was asked to apologise. Of course, what he said was true, and he hadn't named the MP, so Bernardi stood his ground, and for his sins was forced to resign from the front bench.
The point of it all is that, yes the Liberal Party is a broad church. And Labor, too, has left and right - it's easy to call it more right than left. However, in the dichotomous spectrum of Australian politics, Liberal is clearly the party of the conservative/right, and Labor is clearly more the party of the left. If you join the Liberals, you should expect to be working with, and to, a right-wing agenda.
My political sympathies see a stark delineation between left and right. And from that perspective, someone who is out of step with that is simply a quisling. Having said that, it's easy to see that in the wake of the Liberals' electoral defeat, there would inevitably be forces trying to bring the party back from the hard right, and I can't complain about that.
Although it is one of the few right-wing Liberal parties in the world, its founding basis (in the 1940s) means it sometimes attracts what is known in Australia as "small-L liberals", ie those that are not really right wing.
Former Prime Minister John Howard recently referred to the party as "centre right" - which is ironic, given he led it on a lurch to the right over his 11-year tenure.
As it happens, Malcolm Turnbull, who is currently warming the leadership seat, is a small-l liberal. In a few bouts of turmoil over the past week, he elevated a couple of colleagues who were of the same ilk, Joe Hockey - now shadow Treasurer - and Chris Pyne. The latter in particular rankled the hard right and conservatives, including Pyne's fellow South Australian and factional opponent Cory Bernardi. Bernardi published a newsletter in which he mentioned that an unnamed Liberal MP once mentioned to him that he could easily have joined the Labor Party instead, but he joined the Liberals because he lived within a Liberal seat.
The nameless one was quickly identified as Pyne, and Bernardi was seen (by Turnbull at least) as fanning the flames of disunity, and was asked to apologise. Of course, what he said was true, and he hadn't named the MP, so Bernardi stood his ground, and for his sins was forced to resign from the front bench.
The point of it all is that, yes the Liberal Party is a broad church. And Labor, too, has left and right - it's easy to call it more right than left. However, in the dichotomous spectrum of Australian politics, Liberal is clearly the party of the conservative/right, and Labor is clearly more the party of the left. If you join the Liberals, you should expect to be working with, and to, a right-wing agenda.
My political sympathies see a stark delineation between left and right. And from that perspective, someone who is out of step with that is simply a quisling. Having said that, it's easy to see that in the wake of the Liberals' electoral defeat, there would inevitably be forces trying to bring the party back from the hard right, and I can't complain about that.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Global financial crisis - a context
Iceland, with a population smaller than Canberra, is suffering a banking collapse that is affecting local councils in England. Australia's Reserve Bank lowered interest rates a full percentage point (rather than the usual one quarter). The UK government invested 50 billion pounds in its major banks - characterised as a 'partial nationalisation'. Central banks in Europe and America simultaneously lowered interest rates half a percentage point.
What could it be but a global financial crisis?
Malcolm Turnbull, as the new Opposition Leader, took the populist line: that Treasurer Wayne Swan should have "put in a good word for borrowers" to get the banks to pass on the full interest rate cut. And when the Commonwealth Bank bought BankWest for a "bargain" price, he complained about reduced competition.
Yes, it did reduce competition, but for governments of the moment, that is not the point: the key issue is stability. Capitalist production is dependent on financial markets are inherently unstable, rising and falling on sentiment - that is, each person's perception of how the other person is feeling. For most commodities in a market, value lies purely in what someone else is willing to pay, and if there are few buyers, value vanishes in the ether. Governments around the world are desperate to restore confidence.
Periodic downturn is normal, but this one is different. Of course, the origins of the current crisis lie in the under-regulated US market, when the mass of bad housing loans was bundled up in poorly-understood securities, then onsold globally like a toxic virus. Lending slows, capital circulation slows, and the resultant liquidity crisis leads to financial institutions faltering.
The extraordinary actions of governments recently show lessons had been learnt from the 1929 crash. A similar pattern of liquidity and financial instability emerged then, but governments didn't intervene, banks collapsed and history ran its inevitable course.
So this time around, governments took action. Thus far, each action has been insufficient to turn confidence around, so governments around the world keep raising the stakes. These actions are counter to current orthodoxy, proving governments are acting on advice from people who have studied history, and yield ideology to practicality when pushed hard enough.
The perception has been that Australia is in better shape than most to weather the storm, due to three factors: one of the world's highest collective credit ranking of its banks; the financial "reforms" conducted in the 80s and 90s, and an extended resources boom due to China's productive forces. But immunity does not exist, and today Chinese purchasers of iron ore are talking of scaling back demand, due to expected dampening of markets. Swan didn't put in a good word for borrowers because bank stability is his crisis priority.
It will be interesting to see how far governments are prepared to go if further challenged - because surely there is more to come.
In the flurry, a major narrative could be missed: governments around the world have demonstrated their ability to respond to crisis remarkably quickly - and collaboratively. And intervention, nationalisation, and re-regulation [talk] shows they can drop ideology for pragmatism in an instant. The rapid reaction (bar the US Congress), and willingness to collaborate and intervene, should be a portent of the possibilities where global action is required. Unfortunately, global warming has engendered the opposite reaction - inaction. We have elected governments that only understand financial crisis, and not environmental crisis - which however less immediate is vastly deeper and longer-lasting. This demonstrates that we are poor at responding to longer-term issues, and that we have subverted too much of what we value as humans to the purely financial. In this capitalist world, environment is just one of many factors that has by default been treated as an ignorable 'externality'.
What could it be but a global financial crisis?
Malcolm Turnbull, as the new Opposition Leader, took the populist line: that Treasurer Wayne Swan should have "put in a good word for borrowers" to get the banks to pass on the full interest rate cut. And when the Commonwealth Bank bought BankWest for a "bargain" price, he complained about reduced competition.
Yes, it did reduce competition, but for governments of the moment, that is not the point: the key issue is stability. Capitalist production is dependent on financial markets are inherently unstable, rising and falling on sentiment - that is, each person's perception of how the other person is feeling. For most commodities in a market, value lies purely in what someone else is willing to pay, and if there are few buyers, value vanishes in the ether. Governments around the world are desperate to restore confidence.
Periodic downturn is normal, but this one is different. Of course, the origins of the current crisis lie in the under-regulated US market, when the mass of bad housing loans was bundled up in poorly-understood securities, then onsold globally like a toxic virus. Lending slows, capital circulation slows, and the resultant liquidity crisis leads to financial institutions faltering.
The extraordinary actions of governments recently show lessons had been learnt from the 1929 crash. A similar pattern of liquidity and financial instability emerged then, but governments didn't intervene, banks collapsed and history ran its inevitable course.
So this time around, governments took action. Thus far, each action has been insufficient to turn confidence around, so governments around the world keep raising the stakes. These actions are counter to current orthodoxy, proving governments are acting on advice from people who have studied history, and yield ideology to practicality when pushed hard enough.
The perception has been that Australia is in better shape than most to weather the storm, due to three factors: one of the world's highest collective credit ranking of its banks; the financial "reforms" conducted in the 80s and 90s, and an extended resources boom due to China's productive forces. But immunity does not exist, and today Chinese purchasers of iron ore are talking of scaling back demand, due to expected dampening of markets. Swan didn't put in a good word for borrowers because bank stability is his crisis priority.
It will be interesting to see how far governments are prepared to go if further challenged - because surely there is more to come.
In the flurry, a major narrative could be missed: governments around the world have demonstrated their ability to respond to crisis remarkably quickly - and collaboratively. And intervention, nationalisation, and re-regulation [talk] shows they can drop ideology for pragmatism in an instant. The rapid reaction (bar the US Congress), and willingness to collaborate and intervene, should be a portent of the possibilities where global action is required. Unfortunately, global warming has engendered the opposite reaction - inaction. We have elected governments that only understand financial crisis, and not environmental crisis - which however less immediate is vastly deeper and longer-lasting. This demonstrates that we are poor at responding to longer-term issues, and that we have subverted too much of what we value as humans to the purely financial. In this capitalist world, environment is just one of many factors that has by default been treated as an ignorable 'externality'.
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