Should Abbott step down?

[Black Orchid]

Just watch the massive influx of boats as soon as they hear the ALP are back in. They are already waiting for the starters gun.

It will be open for business again for people smugglers and they will be drowning all over the shop and once again we will have to listen to the bleeding heart lefties trying to convince themselves that they can't be stopped and Sarah Crying Two-Dads will shed tears over another tragedies-happen, accidents-happen that she caused.

I would like to see some real figures on how many boats have actually been stopped and how many have arrived since the media blackout.

[Rorschach]

There is no media blackout as such... there are no boats... can't report on what is essentially not happening.

[Black Orchid]

There is no media blackout as such... there are no boats... can't report on what is essentially not happening.

You cannot say there are no boats because, realistically, we just don't know.

[Rorschach]

Realistically there is no blackout
Realistically there is no coverup or conspiracy.

[Black Orchid]

Realistically, to think that Scott Morrison has stopped ALL the boats in such a short time is naive.

According to the Indonesian press there are still many boats heading our way. OK OK we can't believe the Indos but to think there are none arriving here is beyond naive.

[IQS.RLOW]

There is no media blackout.

The coalition has turned back 15-20 boats and there are less and less trying.

[mellie]

There is no media blackout as such... there are no boats... can't report on what is essentially not happening.

You cannot say there are no boats because, realistically, we just don't know.

Realistically, if there were something incriminating to report re- boats being secreted in during a media black-out (the boat blackouts a myth btw) ...rest assured, the left would be all over it like a rash.

[Rorschach]

Why Tony Abbott's leadership is in peril
Date February 8, 2015 - 5:08PM
Amanda Vanstone
Former Howard government minister

The Liberal Party meeting to discuss leadership has not come about because anyone has been undermining Tony Abbott.

It is happening because the party room members have had too many occasions when they have felt ignored or taken for granted. It is a bad thing to do to the people who put you there. When everything goes well they probably don't worry too much. But when it goes cactus they are very focused.

Eight years ago I left the Senate after more than 22 years of service. One of the things that has stayed etched on my brain and somewhere deeper than that is the role of the party room and the importance of every backbencher.

Once, I complained to the then Senate leader Fred Chaney that dressing up as a chicken and going into the chamber – as Tasmanian Liberal Bruce Goodluck had done – made all of us look silly. Fred told me that every MP, including marginal-seat members who might occasionally do stupid things, are valuable people and I should love them all. Why, I asked. The answer is embarrassingly simple: "Because it is only through them that you will ever get the chance to be a minister."

I flinched when I heard Abbott had told the party room, through last week's National Press Club speech, that it was the public's role to "both hire and fire". I thought this was just a somewhat inelegant and unfortunate way of reminding the party room of the risks associated with changing leaders.

However, comments since then make me think I was being too generous. We do not have an American-style presidential system, where the head of government is elected separately by the people. Ours is chosen by the members of the party with the most seats in the lower house. Everybody knows that, including Abbott.

He is playing hardball with the party room when he puts on the public record his view that a change would make the government seem incompetent, like Labor was. I think that was a mistake. If there is a change, his quotes will be dragged out again and again.

It is probably unintended, but it has a "take me on and I'll take you down" air to it. He has given the enemy ammunition to use against his own team, unless of course he remains leader.

Does he really think the public would think the same of Malcolm Turnbull in these circumstances as they did of Julia Gillard then? Some will perceive his comments as trying to lock the backbench, yet again, into his view, whatever the possible cost to the team. It might look just all too selfish.

For the same reason, having apparently unilaterally changed the meeting time, forcing some MPs to make last-minute travel arrangements, he should not insist on a show of hands for a spill motion – that would be perceived as yet another attempt to intimidate and bully the party room.

It is obvious that the leader plays a critical role in elections. Many voters don't discuss policy and focus on which leader they prefer. That cuts both ways. The winner can delude themselves that the victory was all their work. And the loser has to accept that they just weren't up to whatever the public wanted – and consequently a lot of marginal-seat MPs lose their seats. That's why they should always be able to choose their leader. If I have to follow my leader into the valley of the shadow of death, I want a say in who he or she is.

After an election, whichever party wins shows enormous deference to the leader. It would be a stupid mistake, however, to think the victory was all down to the leader.

That would overlook the party members and supporters in marginal seats who choose their candidate, work tirelessly, raise money, distribute leaflets, distribute how-to-vote cards and finally get the person they chose as their candidate into Parliament.

It overlooks all the people in the electorate who, while not party members, nonetheless voted for that candidate. He or she is their voice in Parliament. That's what representative democracy means. Whenever you override, ignore or seek to limit the powers of MPs, you are doing just that to the people who elected them.

You cannot ignore the people, without whom you will never be a minister or prime minister. They are an integral part of you having that opportunity. It is a team effort.

Winning an election as leader is not a ticket to be a dictator for three years. Abbott's proposition effectively says that he should be able to stay until he is tired of the job or is defeated at an election. Great for him, but backbenchers do not warm to defeat. They will never agree to the proposition that dragging a party across the line to victory gives the leader an unfettered right to drag them in despair to defeat. That's why party rooms have the right to change leaders if they want.

Parties demand a lot of their MPs. Of necessity, they eat a daily diet of compromise. The one vote they have that is entirely theirs, where what the rest of the party room thinks is irrelevant, is the leadership vote. It matters a lot because their future fortune or otherwise is inextricably linked to that leader's performance.

In any party room there are backbenchers who are as capable as others in ministerial positions but who, because of timing, geography, gender and a host of other factors, miss out on that chance. They are not lesser beings, just unlucky. There will also be also-rans and nincompoops – although you can rest assured they do not see themselves that way. To treat these people as though they should have no say in what is integral to their future is just not tenable.

In essence Abbott has brought this situation on himself. What the party room will be trying to work out is if he can change and bring the team and Australia with him. We have all seen how devastatingly effective he can be. Nonetheless, if they decide to stick with him there will be no room for mistakes. No third chance.

That is no doubt what is weighing on Malcolm Turnbull's mind. He has been faultlessly loyal. It would be hard to be that popular and sit by as political capital is simply trashed.

If he doesn't believe Abbott can change, and change the public's mind, Turnbull might decide to wait until the party effectively hands him the job. That's what John Howard did when Alexander Downer was struggling as leader in the mid-1990s and it is how he acquired enormous authority.

Of course, if the Liberal MPs don't think Abbott can change, they might do that sooner rather than later.

Amanda Vanstone is an Age columnist and was a Howard government minister.

Funny that nearly all the MSM think Turnbull is the only alternative and that Liberals will cop him a 2nd time. Having already failed.

[Rorschach]

Liberal spill: Something has to give, someone has to go
Date February 8, 2015 - 7:49PM
Paul Sheehan

In November 2009, when shadow ministers were resigning, Kevin Rudd was dominating, Malcolm Turnbull was flat-lining in the polls and the Liberal Party was sundered over the issue of taxing carbon emissions, three men went to visit Joe Hockey in his Parliament House office. They offered him the leadership of the party. They had the numbers.

The three were Senator Nick Minchin, then opposition leader in the senate, Tony Abbott, who had decided not to run, and Senator Eric Abetz, now leader of the government in the Senate. Minchin had previously planned to resign from the shadow ministry over Turnbull's support for Rudd's proposed emissions trading scheme, which he regarded as disastrous policy, but not work to remove Turnbull. Then came a spill motion, which neither Minchin nor Abbott instigated. It failed, but revealed the extent of internal dissatisfaction.

The leadership was now Hockey's for the taking. But Minchin, Abbott and Abetz wanted something in exchange. They wanted Hockey to oppose the carbon emissions policy.

Hockey refused. He famously said that if he won the leadership he would give the party room a conscience vote, as a healing gesture.

That crucial judgement call, on November 30, 2009, would, ultimately, ensure that Hockey would never become Prime Minister.

The next day he did not even survive the first ballot. Later, when it was suggested to Abbott that it was not be a good idea to have Hockey as shadow treasurer, Abbott responded: "Joe is a great retail politician."

Perhaps, but Hockey turned out to be a disastrous retail treasurer. The framing, drafting and selling of the government's first budget was poor in all three phases. Its execution made a mockery of Abbott's commitment to no surprises and no news taxes. The tax on visits to doctors was unworkable. The budget burnt enormous amounts of political capital without extracting a commensurate budget pay-off. Its most contentious elements had no chance of passing a Senate where the populist Palmer United Party held the balance of power.

The Hockey budget failed every test. All pain, no gain. In the febrile leadership speculation of the past 12 days, Hockey's name never came up.

If it all unravels for Abbott and Hockey, at least Abbott became Prime Minister. He led the Coalition in two elections, won big swings in both, fought Labor to a draw in 2010 and smashed them in 2013. He has his place in history.

As for Hockey, his own party room wants him gone. It wants Turnbull installed as treasurer, at the least, as soon as possible.

Hockey is not the only key member of the government the party room wants removed. The other is Peta Credlin, the Prime Minister's chief of staff. Her position is terminal. I had assumed she could be the PM's greatest asset. Abbott clearly felt the same way. Then I started hearing complaint after complaint from within government.

Internal complaints grew into news stories about her management style, her centralised power, her insulation of the PM. The trickles of internal discontent grew into currents of news. These currents became a confluence, a river of public attention and internal disquiet. She became ubiquitous, even a staple in political cartoons.

Staff should never be the story. In damage control, Credlin has ceased to attend cabinet meetings. She is no longer a member of the government staff committee, with oversight of all appointments. When the Prime Minister described criticism of Credlin as "sexist", the mood in caucus changed. If Abbott was saying that the party would have to get rid of him in order to get rid of Credlin, then so be it.

Caucus wants her gone, not muted. Credlin is not a scapegoat. It is not about gender. It is about management.

All of this is why the Prime Minister's decision to award a knighthood to the Duke of Edinburgh, itself inconsequential, became the catalyst for a full-blown crisis.

There are two big differences between the internal revolt that unseated Rudd in 2010 and the upheaval now facing Abbott. Rudd was deemed by his colleagues to be a monomaniacal impossibility to work with. In contrast, Abbott is personable and well liked. But dreadful poll numbers over-ride amiability.

Then there are the election debacles in Victoria and Queensland, infinitely more meaningful than opinion polls.

Something has to give. Someone has to go.

What the heir apparent, Malcolm Turnbull, and the deputy leader, Julie Bishop, and most of the party, will be extremely wary about is how the public reacted after Julia Gillard and her supporters removed Rudd. The gravity of decapitating a Prime Minister in his first term, after he led the Coalition to a decisive election victory, would be mimicking Labor at its most internecine. This is not a legacy the Liberals want to emulate.

And there are still two budgets left to repair the damage before the 2016 election. There is room to move, either way.

The fact that the spill was moved by WA backbencher Luke Simpkins does not help its cause. Last week, Simpkins was inside a rebel camp in Myanmar (Burma), offering solidarity to armed separatists. This was despite the Australian government quietly building a positive relationship with the Myanmar government, while encouraging reform. Simpkins' freelancing was reckless, self-indulgent and disloyal.

Finally, there is a precedent for removing a Liberal prime minister by the Liberal caucus. In January, 1971, John Gorton resigned as Prime Minister after failing to win a confidence vote in the party room. Gorton had been beset by losing seats at the 1969 election, poor polling, gaffs, and a torrent of speculation about the excessive influence of his private secretary, Ainslie Gotto.

That's quite a precedent.

[mantra]

However, comments since then make me think I was being too generous. We do not have an American-style presidential system, where the head of government is elected separately by the people. Ours is chosen by the members of the party with the most seats in the lower house. Everybody knows that, including Abbott.

He is playing hardball with the party room when he puts on the public record his view that a change would make the government seem incompetent, like Labor was. I think that was a mistake. If there is a change, his quotes will be dragged out again and again.

It is probably unintended, but it has a "take me on and I'll take you down" air to it. He has given the enemy ammunition to use against his own team, unless of course he remains leader.

This secret ballot doesn't seem to make any sense. It's supposed to be anonymous, yet Abbott has made many of his cabinet swear to stand by him, which seems to indicate that they are committed to voting for him. Would they be that loyal? We'll have to see, but if the numbers don't stack up and Abbott loses - will they be ostracised?

Funny that nearly all the MSM think Turnbull is the only alternative and that Liberals will cop him a 2nd time. Having already failed.

Who else is there? Turnbull as PM, Bishop as Deputy and Morrison as Treasurer sounds OK.