But guess what?
Maurice Newman, has proved people in the media actually do know why Turnbull was tossed and its exactly the reasons I keep telling people...
Bob Hawke rebuff burdened Libs with a LINO
By Maurice Newman
October 18, 2018
In the Liberal Party pantheon of former leaders, it is doubtful Malcolm Turnbull will find a place. After all, he is a Liberal in name only: a LINO. As confirmed by Glenn Milne in The Sunday Telegraph (August 23, 2009), his instincts are Labor. “Mr Turnbull approached at least six senior ALP figures, including former prime minister Bob Hawke, actively seeking their endorsement to join the ALP,” Milne wrote. Hawke contends Turnbull approached him at Sydney’s Marriott Hotel in November 1999. These approaches were rebuffed.
Even as prime minister, being a Liberal seemed to grate. Indeed, rather than use the Liberal Party badging, he preferred to run his campaigns under the slogan “The Turnbull Coalition Team”.
If Turnbull saw the Liberal Party as a flag of convenience, so did the electorate. The Liberal supporter base watched with dismay as under his leadership, his leftist, aptly named Black Hand, colleagues comprehensively trashed Liberal core values of thrift, free enterprise and smaller government.
This may have played well for the “progressives” in Wentworth, but not for the base. Long-time Liberal voters lost confidence in the Turnbull government’s agenda, which constantly changed when challenged. In the battle for hearts and minds, the Coalition became barely distinguishable from its left-wing opposition.
Former Labor prime minister Paul Keating aptly summed up the Liberal leader’s disposition, saying: “If you needed to know what Malcolm Turnbull truly believes in, what he would die in a ditch over, you would need a microscope to help you find it.”
It is his policy ambiguity, inept leadership and his lack of conviction that caused Turnbull’s parliamentary colleagues to replace him. For the party that misguidedly gave him the honour of representing it, Turnbull rapidly lost voter support. Apart from losing 38 consecutive Newspolls, the Coalition’s 35-seat majority in the House of Representatives secured by Tony Abbott, the prime minister Turnbull deposed, has, in a single term, shrunk to just one. Now, even that slender majority will be tested in tomorrow’s Wentworth by-election.
Understandably, voters in Wentworth, with a general election at best six months away, are annoyed that they are forced to go to the polls. It didn’t have to be. Indeed, asked by The Wentworth Courier if he would stay on if he lost the leadership in a future vote, a spokesman for Turnbull replied “Yes”. In the event, Turnbull resigned and, with wife Lucy, retreated to their Central Park West New York apartment.
In the six weeks since his resignation, Turnbull has yet to offer Scott Morrison or his Wentworth successor, Dave Sharma, any formal electoral support. In fact, apart from a congratulatory tweet, he has yet to even publicly endorse Sharma.
According to Sharri Markson in The Daily Telegraph: “Dissatisfied with the outcome of a new-look government getting on with the job, Turnbull is now trying to force the issue and facilitate the downfall of the Liberal government. There have been leaks designed to damage Morrison from Turnbull’s closest confidants . . . .”
This vindictiveness has become a family affair.
Son Alex Turnbull is encouraging voters to put their money on Labor in the lead-up to the by-election, re-tweeting a post by candidate Tim Murray instructing people to donate. As he sees it: “My father fought the stupid and the stupid won.”
And if the Turnbulls’ scorched-earth policy is not handicap enough, Sharma has been attacked by another LINO, former federal leader John Hewson. He wants electors of Wentworth to register a substantial protest vote against the government “or any other candidates that don’t understand the magnitude and urgency of the climate change challenge”. Hewson is a global-warming activist and a renewable-energy investor, yet rather than speak from this platform, he artfully chooses to abuse his Liberal Party credentials to inflict maximum political pain on Sharma.
The Wentworth aspirant must wonder: with Liberals such as Hewson and the Turnbulls, who needs enemies?
Still, he is turning the other cheek and says he was appalled by the way his party treated Turnbull. He should hope that this wins some sympathy at the polls. Clearly Turnbull has decided his loathing for the party is greater than his regard for Sharma.
Sharma’s credentials are impressive. A Sydney businessman, he is a former public servant and was the youngest person, at 37, to be appointed as an Australian ambassador.
The seat he is contesting has been held by the Liberals for 60 years. It is a wealthy electorate housing many captains of industry and prominent professionals. There is a large Jewish population and an active LGBTI community. In the plebiscite, 80 per cent of voters backed same-sex marriage. A large slice of the population is inner-city and pro-renewable energy, hence “climate change” GetUp advertising trucks urging voters: “Don’t vote Liberal”. Moreover, a leaked government-commissioned report, airing the possibility that faith-based schools could exclude people based on their sexuality, plays particularly badly in Wentworth.
Despite the 17.7 per cent buffer, recent polls are showing Sharma’s victory is not assured. Leaked Liberal Party polling shows him trailing green-left independent Kerryn Phelps by 10 points.
Time will tell. Revenge may be sweet, but there is more riding on the outcome of this election than just Wentworth. If the Liberal Party loses, the government’s majority vanishes and the state of the federal parliament becomes unpredictable. There could be many unintended consequences.
Should the Liberal antagonists get their way and Sharma fails to win, it will be final confirmation that Hawke was wise to deny Turnbull so that he could work for Labor from the Liberal Party benches.
