http://www.thepunch.com.au/tags/liberal-leadership/ Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. en Copyright 2012 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:00:13 +0000 Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:00:13 +0000 Politics, opinion, world news, sports news, latest news, views, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Nathan Rees, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Garrett, Barnaby Joyce, Australian, federal politics, opinion polls, election, The Punch, thepunch, punch ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15 http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/punch-logo-rss.png http://www.thepunch.com.au/ 144 70 Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. Search The Punch keywords http://www.thepunch.com.au/search/ http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/why-step-down-for-someone-who-could-never-step-up/ Back in 2005 Peter Costello made a star appearance at the morning editorial meeting in the news room at The Daily Telegraph. He plonked himself down in what was the deputy editor’s chair. When his choice of seat was pointed out to him he roared with laughter and rolled his eyes, joking that it was his lot in life to forever be number two. The reason for the meeting was simple. The newspaper, of which I had just become editor, wanted to get to know him better. Not because we were trying to cause trouble – well, perhaps a little bit -  but more so because we thought our Sydney readers were curious about the guy and believed that at some stage he would become PM whether they liked it or not. The reality in 2005 was that Labor was going nowhere under the leadership of the likeable but lacklustre Kim Beazley. It was our assessment back then that the only probable change of government during the 2004-2007 parliamentary term would be from a Howard Government to a Costello Government. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/why-step-down-for-someone-who-could-never-step-up/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/why-step-down-for-someone-who-could-never-step-up/#item4322 Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:00:13 +0000 Labor was in the box seat as it prepared for the 1983 election but leader Bill Hayden was extra nervous. Even in his first term in Canberra, Bob Hawke was a threat. In a cruel twist of fate, he rolled Hayden on the very day Malcolm Fraser called the election. In power, Hawke soon had Paul Keating’s burning ambition to corral. John Howard held Peter Costello in a perpetual state of leader-in-waiting, a strategy that worked so well that by the end, both men were spent. Even so, had Howard gone under a proverbial bus at any time, no one in the party room doubted who would take over. Kevin Rudd also had a ready made alternative on hand - a fact so glaringly obvious that Labor MPs didn’t wait for any bus. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/tony-abbott-might-look-safe-but-for-how-long/ Labor was in the box seat as it prepared for the 1983 election but leader Bill Hayden was extra nervous. Even in his first term in Canberra, Bob Hawke was a threat. In a cruel twist of fate, he rolled Hayden on the very day Malcolm Fraser called the election. In power, Hawke soon had Paul Keating’s burning ambition to corral. John Howard held Peter Costello in a perpetual state of leader-in-waiting, a strategy that worked so well that by the end, both men were spent. Even so, had Howard gone under a proverbial bus at any time, no one in the party room doubted who would take over. Kevin Rudd also had a ready made alternative on hand - a fact so glaringly obvious that Labor MPs didn’t wait for any bus. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/tony-abbott-might-look-safe-but-for-how-long/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/tony-abbott-might-look-safe-but-for-how-long/#item4066 Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:00:13 +0000 Labor was in the box seat as it prepared for the 1983 election but leader Bill Hayden was extra nervous. Even in his first term in Canberra, Bob Hawke was a threat. In a cruel twist of fate, he rolled Hayden on the very day Malcolm Fraser called the election. In power, Hawke soon had Paul Keating’s burning ambition to corral. John Howard held Peter Costello in a perpetual state of leader-in-waiting, a strategy that worked so well that by the end, both men were spent. Even so, had Howard gone under a proverbial bus at any time, no one in the party room doubted who would take over. Kevin Rudd also had a ready made alternative on hand - a fact so glaringly obvious that Labor MPs didn’t wait for any bus. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/five-reasons-the-libs-should-push-malcolm-turnbull/ As the election campaigning drones on, my eyes are getting misty for Malcolm Turnbull. Remember him? The guy that led the Opposition, a mere eight months ago? Labor has wheeled out Rudd (almost literally from his hospital bed) in the hope of turning around its woeful campaign. My question is, why doesn’t the Coalition do the same with its hitherto unacknowledged golden boy? Abbott may think he’s winning, but really all he’s doing is not losing. And that can quickly change if Rudd suddenly pushes the turbo boost for Labor. Here are five reasons why Turnbull is the PM candidate we wish we had: feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/five-reasons-the-libs-should-push-malcolm-turnbull/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/five-reasons-the-libs-should-push-malcolm-turnbull/#item3775 Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:00:13 +0000 Labor was in the box seat as it prepared for the 1983 election but leader Bill Hayden was extra nervous. Even in his first term in Canberra, Bob Hawke was a threat. In a cruel twist of fate, he rolled Hayden on the very day Malcolm Fraser called the election. In power, Hawke soon had Paul Keating’s burning ambition to corral. John Howard held Peter Costello in a perpetual state of leader-in-waiting, a strategy that worked so well that by the end, both men were spent. Even so, had Howard gone under a proverbial bus at any time, no one in the party room doubted who would take over. Kevin Rudd also had a ready made alternative on hand - a fact so glaringly obvious that Labor MPs didn’t wait for any bus. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/dinner-with-malcolm-a-chance-for-the-libs-to-regroup/ Last July I had dinner with Malcolm Fraser and a small group in the Karagheusian Room in University House at the University of Melbourne. The dinner was in honour of my brother in law Gerry Simpson, who had just delivered his Inaugural Professorial Lecture, entitled “War Crimes Trials, Solemnity and the Problem of Evil”. The evening displayed symbols of ancient, privileged University traditions that clash with contemporary political life. Waiters served us pre-Master Chef dishes on good china, surrounded by walnut antique furniture from Paris and a Brueghel III oil painting peered down on us through the centuries. Mr Fraser was relaxed and comfortable. Our conversations turned to climate change, of course. I said I thought the legal profession should do more to litigate against polluters and regulators. I understand that there is no climate law under which to run cases, but if the planet is burning, that is enough of a smoking gun for this bush lawyer. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/dinner-with-malcolm-a-chance-for-the-libs-to-regroup/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/dinner-with-malcolm-a-chance-for-the-libs-to-regroup/#item3167 Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:00:13 +0000 Labor was in the box seat as it prepared for the 1983 election but leader Bill Hayden was extra nervous. Even in his first term in Canberra, Bob Hawke was a threat. In a cruel twist of fate, he rolled Hayden on the very day Malcolm Fraser called the election. In power, Hawke soon had Paul Keating’s burning ambition to corral. John Howard held Peter Costello in a perpetual state of leader-in-waiting, a strategy that worked so well that by the end, both men were spent. Even so, had Howard gone under a proverbial bus at any time, no one in the party room doubted who would take over. Kevin Rudd also had a ready made alternative on hand - a fact so glaringly obvious that Labor MPs didn’t wait for any bus. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-holy-war-on-climate-change/ Hardline conservative Christians helped orchestrate the flood of correspondence that convinced Liberal MPs to ditch support for Malcolm Turnbull and the emissions trading scheme. One site that published repeated calls for direct lobbying of politicians was Catch the Fire Ministries, a church whose pastor earlier this year said the Black Saturday bushfires were divine vengeance for liberal abortion laws. It has also emerged that Cory Bernardi, one of the Liberal senators who led the revolt against Turnbull, called on supporters in late November to wage an email campaign to persuade his colleagues in the Senate that the public was outraged at the ETS. His email was published and endorsed by a website popular with fringe conspiracy theorists. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-holy-war-on-climate-change/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-holy-war-on-climate-change/#item1938 Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:00:13 +0000 Labor was in the box seat as it prepared for the 1983 election but leader Bill Hayden was extra nervous. Even in his first term in Canberra, Bob Hawke was a threat. In a cruel twist of fate, he rolled Hayden on the very day Malcolm Fraser called the election. In power, Hawke soon had Paul Keating’s burning ambition to corral. John Howard held Peter Costello in a perpetual state of leader-in-waiting, a strategy that worked so well that by the end, both men were spent. Even so, had Howard gone under a proverbial bus at any time, no one in the party room doubted who would take over. Kevin Rudd also had a ready made alternative on hand - a fact so glaringly obvious that Labor MPs didn’t wait for any bus. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/abbotts-challenge-now-is-to-renew-the-liberal-party/ GetUp’s latest poll has found the public are hoping Tony Abbott will take the party down a progressive path. It’s a big year for the Liberal Party of Australia. One hundred years ago, the Protectionist and Free Trade parties combined to offer voters an alternative to the Labor party. Oppositions can be great force within our democracy. They can be the drivers of accountability and transparency, of new thinking and ambitious policy. And in a democracy where our major parties fight over just a small subset of the population (swinging voters), their power in influencing the Government of the day is certainly present. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/abbotts-challenge-now-is-to-renew-the-liberal-party/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/abbotts-challenge-now-is-to-renew-the-liberal-party/#item1939 Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:00:13 +0000 Labor was in the box seat as it prepared for the 1983 election but leader Bill Hayden was extra nervous. Even in his first term in Canberra, Bob Hawke was a threat. In a cruel twist of fate, he rolled Hayden on the very day Malcolm Fraser called the election. In power, Hawke soon had Paul Keating’s burning ambition to corral. John Howard held Peter Costello in a perpetual state of leader-in-waiting, a strategy that worked so well that by the end, both men were spent. Even so, had Howard gone under a proverbial bus at any time, no one in the party room doubted who would take over. Kevin Rudd also had a ready made alternative on hand - a fact so glaringly obvious that Labor MPs didn’t wait for any bus. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/what-next-the-turnbull-diaries/ When Tony Abbott snatched the leadership of the Liberal Party last week some commentators were quick to liken the sharp-tongued Member for Waringah to the former Member for Werriwa Mark Latham. But with his blistering online attack on his own party and leader this morning Malcolm Turnbull looks to be the one headed for the remote compound with an electric fence. While a shadow minister, Tony Abbott was never afraid of speaking bluntly in a manner that was at odds with Coalition policy. So as I am a humble backbencher I am sure he won’t complain if I tell a few home truths about the farce that the Coalition’s policy, or lack of policy, on climate change has descended into. The usually articulate and verbose Mr Turnbull went on to describe Mr Abbott’s claim you can cut emissions without an ETS as “bullshit.” I think he’s blown a gasket. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/what-next-the-turnbull-diaries/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/what-next-the-turnbull-diaries/#item1931 Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:00:13 +0000 Labor was in the box seat as it prepared for the 1983 election but leader Bill Hayden was extra nervous. Even in his first term in Canberra, Bob Hawke was a threat. In a cruel twist of fate, he rolled Hayden on the very day Malcolm Fraser called the election. In power, Hawke soon had Paul Keating’s burning ambition to corral. John Howard held Peter Costello in a perpetual state of leader-in-waiting, a strategy that worked so well that by the end, both men were spent. Even so, had Howard gone under a proverbial bus at any time, no one in the party room doubted who would take over. Kevin Rudd also had a ready made alternative on hand - a fact so glaringly obvious that Labor MPs didn’t wait for any bus. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/what-do-we-learn-from-the-liberal-wins-not-much/ Update: The first Newspoll following Tony Abbott taking the Liberal leadership this morning shows the Opposition’s primary vote rising by 4 per cent to 38 per cent, with Tony Abbott’s preferred Prime Minister rating at 23 per cent. Kevin Rudd preferred PM support has dropped 5 points to 60 per cent with Labor still holding a 56-44 lead in the two party preferred vote. While the weekend’s by-elections in Higgins and Bradfield were undoubtedly a good result for the Liberal Party, it’s hard to draw any other conclusion from them other than to say Liberals can still be elected in safe Liberal seats.  It might be tempting for Liberals opposed to the ETS to argue that it puts paid to the claim the Government claims that Australians have an overwhelming desire for the introduction of the scheme, but being returned in safe seats formally occupied by the Treasurer and former opposition leader with no Labor candidate contesting isn’t exactly a litmus test on the national vibe. Despite a swing of less than 1 per cent swing against her the new member of Higgins Kelly O’Dwyer wasn’t about to claim as much either when The Punch asked whether it was an endorsement of Tony’s Abbott’s stance. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/what-do-we-learn-from-the-liberal-wins-not-much/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/what-do-we-learn-from-the-liberal-wins-not-much/#item1926 Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:00:13 +0000 Labor was in the box seat as it prepared for the 1983 election but leader Bill Hayden was extra nervous. Even in his first term in Canberra, Bob Hawke was a threat. In a cruel twist of fate, he rolled Hayden on the very day Malcolm Fraser called the election. In power, Hawke soon had Paul Keating’s burning ambition to corral. John Howard held Peter Costello in a perpetual state of leader-in-waiting, a strategy that worked so well that by the end, both men were spent. Even so, had Howard gone under a proverbial bus at any time, no one in the party room doubted who would take over. Kevin Rudd also had a ready made alternative on hand - a fact so glaringly obvious that Labor MPs didn’t wait for any bus. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/web-women-unleash-cyber-hell-on-holy-tony/ There has been a lot of giddiness and hoopla surrounding the use of Twitter by journalists to cover the leadership ructions in the Liberal Party this past fortnight. It certainly made for high-energy reading – with its rawness and immediacy, it made the readers feel as if they were there as journalists passed on factoids from the mayhem and provided links to news and analysis of running events. The downside of course was that it also gave tweeting journalists the ability to be 100 per cent wrong in real time – and I include myself among their number – where rumour and conjecture was shot into cyberspace, sending frantic packs of gallery journalists sprinting down corridors searching for a reputed Julie Bishop press conference, to find nothing but a Coke machine. This real-time dissemination of both fact and fiction is an issue for the political parties head of next year’s election, where any degree of tail-chasing undermines their desire for a stage-managed and risk-averse passage through the campaign. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/web-women-unleash-cyber-hell-on-holy-tony/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/web-women-unleash-cyber-hell-on-holy-tony/#item1925 Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:00:13 +0000 Labor was in the box seat as it prepared for the 1983 election but leader Bill Hayden was extra nervous. Even in his first term in Canberra, Bob Hawke was a threat. In a cruel twist of fate, he rolled Hayden on the very day Malcolm Fraser called the election. In power, Hawke soon had Paul Keating’s burning ambition to corral. John Howard held Peter Costello in a perpetual state of leader-in-waiting, a strategy that worked so well that by the end, both men were spent. Even so, had Howard gone under a proverbial bus at any time, no one in the party room doubted who would take over. Kevin Rudd also had a ready made alternative on hand - a fact so glaringly obvious that Labor MPs didn’t wait for any bus. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/cut-the-crap-and-make-malcolm-the-nsw-premier/ As NSW Labor once again bury and dig up another leader in their pet cemetery of a cabinet to lead its army of walking dead, we see that Malcolm Turnbull has begun a bit of haunting of his own. Yesterday’s cracking yarn by Annabel Crabb revealing angry emails sent by Malcolm Turnbull to Julie Bishop, accusing the deputy opposition leader of being hypocritical in her support for Tony Abbott, is evidence of the dangers of having an angry Malcolm Turnbull on the backbench. Combined with blogs and newsletters arguing that Abbott’s stand on the ETS is unworkable, one gets the feeling that Malcolm Turnbull could be dropping political cluster bombs from the backbench for a while yet. So here’s a proposal that some NSW Liberals are seriously beginning to talk about: make Malcolm Turnbull the next Liberal Premier of NSW. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Tory Shepherd) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/cut-the-crap-and-make-malcolm-the-nsw-premier/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/cut-the-crap-and-make-malcolm-the-nsw-premier/#item1919 Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:00:13 +0000 Labor was in the box seat as it prepared for the 1983 election but leader Bill Hayden was extra nervous. Even in his first term in Canberra, Bob Hawke was a threat. In a cruel twist of fate, he rolled Hayden on the very day Malcolm Fraser called the election. In power, Hawke soon had Paul Keating’s burning ambition to corral. John Howard held Peter Costello in a perpetual state of leader-in-waiting, a strategy that worked so well that by the end, both men were spent. Even so, had Howard gone under a proverbial bus at any time, no one in the party room doubted who would take over. Kevin Rudd also had a ready made alternative on hand - a fact so glaringly obvious that Labor MPs didn’t wait for any bus.