The battle for the leadership of the Liberal Party is now looking more like a contest for a high school SRC as Joe Hockey turns to social media to ask people what he should do over the ETS - and by default, whether he should shaft Malcolm Turnbull. He also wrote on Twitter today: “Hey team re The ETS. Give me your views please on the policy and political debate. I really want your feedback.”
Social media tragics will hail this as a ground-breaking moment in participatory democracy. Others - I’d call them “almost everybody” - will just shake their heads in disbelief that the alternative government of Australia has been reduced to tweeting the punters for help as its most senior members become paralysed by panic, opportunism and expediency.
A quick stocktake of where things are at with the leadership:
Tony Abbott - who only a few months back wrote publicly that Malcolm Turnbull should back the ETS and is now destroying him for doing just that - is no longer expected to run for the leadership on Monday.
Hockey has emerged as the consensus candidate, with Peter Dutton (who doesn’t have a seat by the way) as his deputy. The Right will only support Hockey if he agrees to refer the CPRS to a Senate committee, clogging it up well into next year and preventing the Rudd Government from exercising its mandate and passing the legislation.
Hockey, it should be noted, has until now held the exact same views as Turnbull on climate change and stood solidly behind him in supporting the amended CPRS. He said on Wednesday that he was not prepared to “sell his soul” by changing position to win right wing support for the leadership.
His questions to the public on Facebook and Twitter suggest he is now tip-toeing his way to doing pretty much that - if not opposing the CPRS, knowingly sabotaging it by condemning it to a marathon inquiry, during which he may be able to change positions in light of new evidence going to its cost or effectiveness.
It’s not the first time politicians have changed their position to seize power and roll a friend. It’s the first time they’ve conducted it in the social media space, and whether that will be an enduring good look for the Liberals is one thing I seriously doubt.
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