Pyne told to pipe down
Warning as senior Liberals fear PM moving too far to left
CHRISTOPHER Pyne is facing an unprecedented attack from ministerial colleagues who are demanding he get off television screens and keep his mouth shut to stop the Coalition losing votes.
Senior Liberal MPs have also issued a warning to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull that he needs to change course urgently, and resist moving further to the left, “or face certain defeat”.
The Right- arm of the Liberal Party has flexed its mus- cles in the wake of revelations Mr Pyne boasted that the Liberal Left had overtaken the party, and same- sex marriage would be introduced “sooner than everyone thinks”.
Mr Pyne’s remarks at a soiree on Friday night have inflamed a widening factional division at the most senior ranks of the Turnbull Government, where there are festering concerns that under Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership, the Coalition was becoming a solid Labor government.
Senior Liberals have expressed their concerns to News Corp over the past fortnight about the proposed Clean Energy Target, upsetting the Liberal core base through Gonski 2.0 and about a high- spending and high- taxing Federal Budget that one described as “a wretched document”.
“In essence we’re bleeding votes to One Nation across the country and going further to the Left is just going to put us into more trouble,” one senior Liberal MP said yesterday.
“We’ve got to focus on the issues which are directly relevant to everyday Australians and not be distracted by topics like same sex marriage. We either correct or face certain defeat.”
One minister said Mr Turnbull needed to distance himself from Mr Pyne and said the South Australian powerbroker “should not be someone who is at the centre of the action”.
The minister said Mr Pyne’s leaked recording was the latest in a long line of events that had led colleagues to believe he was a “huge drag on our vote”.
“Every time he speaks publicly on television or radio, we lose votes,” he said.
The minister pointed to Mr Pyne’s performance during his time in federal politics.
“He is the senior South Australian who has basically overseen the crumbling of our voters in SA, losing seats at the last election even with $ 90 billion in pork barrelling,” he said.
But two Cabinet ministers defended Mr Pyne yesterday, with one saying his mistake was not a hanging offence.
“Pyne made an error of judgment but not fatal. The party needs to move on and concentrate on issues that are important to Liberal supporters,” he said.