There’s no way out of this mess

CLOWNS to the left of us, jokers to the right. And here we are, voters, stuck in the middle with only Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten to choose from.

So is Prime Minister Turnbull the joker or the clown?

Hard to tell, just like it’s hard to tell if he’s to the Left of us or the Right, especially now his ally Christopher Pyne admits he asked the far-Left GetUp! to lobby MPs to save Turnbull’s leadership from Tony Abbott. But off Turnbull goes, lurching from one disaster to another like some Wile E. Coyote.

Check out just the past three weeks, and his frantic attempts to smash Shorten, the Labor leader.

First, Turnbull tried to make Shorten seem a global warming crazy who will destroy our electricity system with his mad plan to force us to get nearly half our power from wind and solar.

But the best alternative that Turnbull, himself a warmist, came up with was a scheme to cut our soaring electricity bills by just $2 a week in 10 years’ time, and he couldn’t even guarantee that.

So if Shorten’s the danger — and he is — how is Turnbull the saviour?

Then Turnbull last week sprang an elaborate trap that had police raiding the Australian Workers’ Union to find documents that might prove Shorten made political donations as AWU boss a decade ago that weren’t authorised the right way.

What a pathetic abuse of state power to hound a political enemy.

It collapsed into farce, anyway, when Employment Minister Michaelia Cash was caught out telling a falsehood — claiming her staff hadn’t tipped off journalists to go film the raids.

So, again, if Shorten made dodgy deals as a union boss — and he did — how is Turnbull’s dodgy use of the state to persecute him any better?

And to top it off, the High Court last week booted two Turnbull Cabinet ministers, Barnaby Joyce and Senator Fiona Nash, out of parliament for having been dual citizens when elected.

What a disaster for Turnbull. He’d refused to make them stand aside before the decision, insisting in August Joyce “is qualified to sit in the house and the High Court will so hold”.

In fact, the High Court judges decided seven to zip the other way, leaving the government holding just 75 of the now 149 Lower House seats until Joyce is re-elected in a byelection.

So if Shorten has bad judgment, how is Turnbull’s better?

Liberal MPs are not complete idiots. They know polls show them set for a hiding under Turnbull, but most simply cannot think of anyone better to replace him.

Abbott clearly is the only alternative leader with a plan and a record of winning elections, but MPs fear his return would set off a war with Liberals tearing each other apart. Imagine Turnbull’s vengeance.

Who else? Immigration Minister Peter Dutton doesn’t think he is ready to take over, and Treasurer Scott Morrison seems damaged goods. Deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop is ephemerally popular, but is also a lightweight whose political judgment seems as lousy as the PM’s.

So the Liberals feel stuck with Turnbull, even as donations dry up and branches are in mutiny. So are voters. Living standards have been flat for years while taxes and charges soar. That frustration is what will hand Labor the election. It won’t be affection for Labor, which olls say even now ould win only a third the primary vote. Can you blame ters for distrusting horten? He shares urnbull’s lack of harisma and his eeming insincerity ecause he, too, lacks real control of his party.

The man most likely to stop Shorten becoming prime minister is not actually Turnbull but Anthony Albanese, his popular rival from Labor’s Left.

Shorten must go Left to hold off his challengers and also define Labor from Turnbull’s Labor-lite Liberals. So he promises even higher taxes and spending, plus more global warning policies that have already given us among the world’s highest electricity prices.

He’s even backing a referendum to give us a second “advisory” parliament chosen only by Aborigines.

I cannot imagine Shorten believes in such extreme policies, and his poor poll ratings suggest many voters don’t think he’s authentic, either.

It all adds up to a stalemate: Shorten will lead Labor while the Liberals are behind in the polls. The Liberals will stay behind while Turnbull leads them. And Turnbull will stay leader because the Liberals fear even worse.

Thus are we all trapped, facing Buckley’s choice — and decline.