Time for Libs to show us what they’re all made of
IN the end Julie Bishop did the right thing by the party she served for 20 years.
By stepping down as Foreign Affairs Minister but vowing to stay in parliament, at least until the next federal election, she has saved new Prime Minister Scott Morrison the embarrassment and disruption of a double byelection.
For that she should have the universal and eternal admiration of the Liberal Party.
A highly visible and likeable politician, Bishop’s energy, wit and enthusiasm will be missed but to suggest she was a viable candidate to lead the party, and the country, is fanciful.
Bishop would’ve enjoyed the briefest of honeymoon periods before her policy failings were fully exposed.
Blessed with a portfolio where there is considerable bipartisanship, Bishop’s enormous personal popularity rarely translated to effectiveness in either selling policies or holding Labor to account.
Indeed Bishop seldom laid a glove on Labor and faltered when asked about issues outside her portfolio.
A deputy leader can’t claim uncomfortable questions about one of her party’s key policies are “a gotcha moment” or simply say “it’s not my portfolio”.
That’s precisely what Bishop did during the 2016 campaign when 3AW radio host Neil Mitchell asked her about the Coalition’s contentious superannuation policies.
It was painfully clear to anyone listening that the deputy PM didn’t fully understand the policy she was advocating.
There’s good reason she only received 11 votes in Friday’s leadership ballot and it’s only partly due to the fact that the so-called “moderates” knew that she’d lose to Peter Dutton in a two-horse race.
Bishop’s departure from Cabinet creates a vacancy in a coveted portfolio that Morrison can use to rebuild burnt bridges and help unify a party that appeared a week ago hopelessly fractured.
Morrison is not Turnbull 2.0 and as a genuine conservative he can bring back the disillusioned base who have abandoned the Coalition in astonishing numbers and seen its primary vote plummet to disastrous levels.
The Coalition got 42 per cent of the primary vote in the 2016 Federal election, after former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull ran the most inept campaign imaginable, and managed to scrape home with a one-seat majority.
In the last Newspoll of Turnbull’s prime ministership the Coalition’s primary vote was down to 37 per cent, it was 33 per cent in last week’s Fairfax-Ipsos poll.
A primary vote anywhere in the mid-30s translates to an almighty shellacking come election day.
Under Turnbull’s Labor-lite leadership the party lost its way and a sizeable portion of its supporters.
The change should’ve happened at least 12 months ago to give the new leader a fighting chance at the next election, as it stands Morrison has been handed a near impossible task.
The major problem with Turnbull wasn’t just his tin ear, lack of principles, history of treachery and inability to communicate with voters, he was always in the wrong party.
Turnbull was never a conservative and what happened on Friday was inevitable.
The man who begged Labor powerbroker Graham Richardson for a spot on the Labor Senate ticket in the 1990s has caused enormous damage and left the Liberal party a weakened shadow of its former self.
Turnbull will demonstrate his utter disdain for the party that made him prime minister by forcing a by-election that could jeopardize the Coalition’s one-seat majority in the lower house.
It’s the final act of selfabsorbed bastardry and comes despite his promise, given only a week ago, to remain the member for Wentworth even if he lost the leadership.
The Liberals have only themselves to blame for knifing a first-term PM and allowing an imposter, who relentlessly white-anted two leaders, to take over the party of Menzies and Howard.
Peter Dutton’s disappointed supporters should remember Morrison’s strong conservative credentials; he is the Immigration Minister who stopped the boats and copped unhinged vitriol from activists and much of the media for his tough approach to border protection.
Morrison’s world view is a lot closer to Dutton than it is to Turnbull.
He may have been Turnbull’s preferred candidate at last Friday’s final ballot but he is no small “l” liberal.
In a smart move that will begin the party’s healing, Morrison will keep coup leaders Dutton and Mathias Cormann in their portfolios.
But what matters above all else is policy.
The Morrison government must formulate policies that are sufficiently different to justify the change in leadership.
Voters deserve stability but they also deserve a clear choice at the polling booth, not two versions of Labor who are on a unity ticket on critical issues such as population and climate change. Of course there is a transactional cost in changing leaders but the Coalition were headed for defeat under Turnbull.
If they are going to lose it might as well be with a leader who reflects the values of its members and supporters and who will hang around to repair the mess Turnbull created.