Sunday, August 9th, 2009...2:39 pm
StimPac debt is not a problem
Ross Gittins is spot on in his criticism of Malcolm Turnbull’s debt arguments against the federal government.
As I have said before Atlantis: Milo’s Return move
the Liberal party in Australia places very little currency in educating the Australian public about economic issues — indeed, it is in their interests to oversimplify matters, and appeal to emotive and populist rhetoric.
Taking advantage of this economic ignorance was certainly a good political move — unexpected given Turnbull’s general tin-ear for the craft. His poll numbers were slowly improving during the second quarter of the year. But his major snafu with the Utegate-email affair demonstrates that pursuing that line of argument and its positive results was more luck than anything.
That is what is vexing about Turnbull. He’s clearly intelligent, is charismatic when presenting to an audience, suitably liberal-moderate, and would probably give a fair shake as PM. But he has all the tempestuousness and impatience of a child. He likes high-risk and high-reward. Yet, you don’t get that many chances in politics. It is virtually impossible to recover. Nor is he a team player, and without a united team behind him he cannot even begin to claw back the ground necessary to win an election.
Turnbull is not the kind of man who will sit around on the parliamentary benches. There are many opportunities outside politics he could pursue. Everyone is asking “how much longer will he remain Liberal leader?” The more pertinent question is “how much longer will he be the member for Wentworth?”
2 Comments
August 9th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
He’s only still leader of the opposition because of the lack of a suitable alternative.
August 10th, 2009 at 12:33 am
Malcolm Turnbull would make an okay Prime Minister. He is a pretty awesome guy, for a Liberal leader. In many ways, he has achieved a great deal more in his pre-federal politics life than, say, Kevin Rudd.
I feel his key shortcoming as a potential PM of Australia is the image of being out of touch which he seems unable to shake off. Being the member for *Wentworth* does not help. (Just as being the member for Vaucluse really does not help one getting elected Premier in NSW.)
He seems blinded by his own brilliance. Being the most awesome — and perhaps the only awesome — guy on the Coalition front bench leads to hubris, and hubris leads to Godwin Grech.
Perhaps the Liberals should pray very hard for another dip in the economy. It really isn’t their fault how resilient the Australian economy has proved to be.
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