Three Reasons Why Malcolm Will Definitely Still Be PM Next Week!
“Oh, hell – prophecy’s a thankless business, and history has a way of showing us what, in retrospect, are very logical solutions to awful messes.” (Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano).
Well, I was going to write a piece about the way we’re being set up to allow fracking. Just as the Liberals have managed to demonise the reliability of renewables because South Australia had blackouts, while ignoring blackouts in states with very little reliance on renewables as being just one of those inevitable things, then we’ll soon have a campaign that suggests that those gas “shortages” will be solved by allowing lots and lots of gas companies to do lots and lots of onshore exploration. That should bring the price down! Of course, the argument is a bit like saying if we let companies drill for gold because there’s probably some under your house, then we don’t need to compensate you because you’ll benefit when the extra gold brings the price down for your next jewellery purchase. If companies do manage to get more access to gas through fracking, it won’t solve the “shortage” because the shortage is being caused by the fact that it’s being flogged off overseas, not because Australia doesn’t produce enough. I suspect that all the “extra” gas will still be flogged off to other countries for higher prices than we’ve traditionally paid.
But, as Kurt Vonnegut wrote in his rather prescient 50s novel, Player Piano, prophecy is a thankless business. If I’m right, people will say how obvious, but if I’m wrong, it’s something to hold over my head. However, in spite of the dangers, I’m prepared to give three reasons why Malcolm Turnbull will still be PM next week.
1 The first is that neither Scott Morrison nor Peter Dutton have the numbers to be sure that they’d win. True, they”d both have more votes than Turnbull if the spill happened, but each is trying to shore up just a little more support to ensure that they’re the one to emerge victor. Look at the shadow plays. Dutton tries to empire build with the proposed Department of Homeland Security. Morrison, on the other hand, starts talking about helping with housing affordability. Turnbull announces that he’ll have more to do with the Budget. So, it’s quite possible that there’d be a bit of argy-bargy before either of the terrible two was confident enough to challenge the Wet One.
2 Because of the general expectation that Labor will win in WA today, then the fallout from the loss may not be as bad for Turnbull as it could be. Should the Liberals just lose, we may even have Malcolm suggesting that it was a shame he was too busy to get over there in the last week, because his appearance may have just got them over the line. Ok, that may be delusional, and it’s probably more accurate to say that if Colin Barnett had been too busy to campaign that may have actually helped the Liberals, but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. Anyway, Labor need an enormous swing to actually form the government, and while it certainly looks likely, there’s a strong chance that the swing may not be as big as expected. When the Puppets of Pauline fail to get the twenty percent or so that some polls suggest, Malcolm may try to spin a small loss as an enormous victory for the sensible centre, in spite of the fact that in the past few months he’s said nothing either “sensible” or “centre”. Mind you, it also wouldn’t surprise me, if the Liberals are decimated in WA, which would create a lot of twitchy backbenchers in Canberra.
3 But my main reason for suggesting that I’m supremely confident that Malcolm will be PM next week is that Monday is the start of the week and there’s no way they’ll remove him before Tuesday at the earliest.
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22 comments
Login here Register hereIt would be fun to watch the blood and guts flung about as Dutton and Morrison fight for the leadership. (I’ve been watching ‘The Vikings’ and those images are vivid in my mind.)
Hopefully, they would give each other mortal wounds and those wounds would also bleed so bad that even Abetz, Abbott and Andrews get caught up in the fray and suffer terrible blows while delivering mortal blows to Malcolm, as he stands oblivious at the podium still believing he has his audience transfixed by his waffle.
Dutton versus Morrison, what a choice, how low have the Liberals sunk; in the past there has always been at least one half reasonable , now there’s none…
helvityni, you are right, there’s no real choice, the LNP is the home of neo-liberal malcontents. Swapping one face hiding a regressive mindset with another LNP face will change nothing – we will still have a party stuck in the dark ages.
About the only solution I ever see giving us some semblance of ‘will of the people’ relates to the Swiss style direct democracy or popular initiative vote. You probably know a lot more about that than I do but it seems to one possible way forward.
It seems that the Liberal’s strategy of swapping preferences has backfired and people have woken up to the fact that Hansonism is just Liberal Lite which, in turn, is right-wing conservatism.
I wonder will the federal Liberal party now come to their senses and shift away from their alliance with
Hanson ?
Like the drowning, they are all grabbing at anything that floats by to save their power base.
Lacking in morals, lacking in direction, lacking in any quality that would indicate the making of a statesman.
Desperation by them all.
Let us HOPE that the electorate will remember come next election.
Terry2
“It seems that the Liberal’s strategy of swapping preferences has backfired”
Maybe not.
The polling figures I saw last night make it a bit closer
Pauline Hanson has high hopes of getting five One Nation MPs into the WA parliament.
She has high hopes of winning the lower house seats of Kalgoorlie and Pilbara which is held by Nationals leader Brendon Grylls, as well three upper house seats.
Derryn Hinchs staffer “preference whisperer” Glenn Druery has been a busy little lad in W.A. with the minor Parties and it seems uncertain what parties like JULIE MATHESON for WESTERN AUSTRALIA Party which has 30 candidates will play and the fact there are 700 candidates from 16 parties things might not be all that open and shut for Labor.
In the past week Mark McGowans ratings have slumped a bit while Colin Barnetts have continued to improve
Should be interesting
the election will be fun perhaps a labor win and a black will give trumble a second term? Button neither dutton nor morrison have the power of the rabbott nor the aplomb of trumble the token women might last.
I went to the nt fracking info on thursday it seems silly to give a few $millions into gina for gas under current fracking knowledge when we could leave it till better technology for the process of extraction and perhaps better use for the products.
Why not buy some of our gas back before it is exported indeed we could legislate and an emergency law and compulsorily buy the australian company that owns the current Australian gas and keep some of it here?
The country is in real trouble when Morrison and Dutton are considered as even remote possibilities as Prime Minister
Entertaining headline.
I haven’t really been keeping up with WA over the last week or so. Stuff happens.
Whatever happens in WA today, trumbles is on a dead-set winner, because in all honesty he is going to BLAME LABOR.
Our poorleen is a spitball pitch, with no one sure of where she is going to end up.
And looking at the picture at the top of this article, of the 3 options I think the gap between dud-one and moronscum would make the best pm, but it hasn’t laid out it’s policies yet, so as you suggest Rossleigh, trumbles is safe for another week.
Thieves falling out ; comes to mind. No one could convince me that these professional self-servers ae in power for the good of the people.
If Hanson gets as big a percentage of the vote as is being predicted, I place the blame solely at the feet of the media. Every single day my news feed is polluted by ANOTHER story about the woman. For anyone in WA who wants to cast a protest vote and give neither Liberal or Labor their first preference, but who is too lazy to research who the other independent or minor parties are or what they stand for, the media has made sure that One Nation will be the top of mind party to vote for if they want to show their disgust at the major parties,
I think there is 1.75million reasons why Malcayman is and will be the PM til the next election!
The best to hope for out of today’s election would be to see Hanson toppled from her perch. Good for politics in this wide brown land of ours.
Turnbull will soon tire of this jolly jape of being PM. His dream was to usher in his flawed model of the Republic, which will never come to pass. He sobs himself to sleep on a bed of money, but he will wake – sometime soon – and as the capitalist hardhead he is, will eventually come to the realisation that his ROI (return on investment – in dollars and time) is all for naught. The ABC gave him the rope he needed to whiteant Abbott for two years, and boosted his attributes and fancies way beyond his ability.
Having spent $1,750,000 to end up with a majority of one still leaves a nasty taste – and he knows it will require much more for the next election. Why? The small donations turned off like a tap after he knifed Abbott, and boy did we let headquarters know when they called with the begging bowl out that: (A) his undermining then knifing of Abbott was disgraceful, and (B) He can tip in HIS own dough whilst he remains leader.
He will retire to the backbench and gift the Leadership to Ms Julie Bishop.
Ms Bishop will beat hapless Bill like a red-headed stepchild, because:
(A) She’s politically tough, and possesses strength of character… show me anyone else who would go into bat on behalf of the wicked James Hardie
(B) Communicates very well at all levels of society
(C) Has an international profile
(D) Is liked by the bogans in Western Sydney – she’s treated like a celebrity there and is not terrified by anyone West of Double Bay
(E) Is a good sort, and a good example of physical fitness
We are in for interesting days ahead.
havanaliedown,
I can imagine Julie Bishop in battle with Linda Burney, and Bishop’s celebrity pandering and designer clothes would not save her.
Julie Bishop imho is just one investigative journalist’s expenses expose away from disaster. She’s already taken her partner into government meetings hasn’t she, in a kind of Take Your Spouse to Work kind of way? In a spirit of feminine solidarity I would say ANY woman would be an improvement on what we have been given by the LNP so far, but I find it very hard to warm to her in any way, and haven’t we already had our fingers badly burned by voting in a leader who looks the part and talks the part, until they get in and then it all proves to have been snake oil?
True Diane, add to that her working in a business that denied compo claims for asbestos damages and she’s a sitting duck if she gets the top job.
There’s 1.7 million reasons for Turnbull not going anywhere.
As for fracking I’ll agree to it if they start in Point Piper first.
No way Julie Bishop could have the top job, after all she’s barren.
“Look at the shadow plays. Dutton tries to empire build with the proposed Department of Homeland Security.”
So, once the axis of evil, Dutton, Quadvlieg and Pezzullo, get control of the empire, how do you think it will go?
When they merged Customs with Immigration to form Border Farce, it went swimmingly.
Ok, their computer system still doesn’t work. So they no longer report on it. See? Fixed.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-27/ibm-unlikely-to-hit-customs-and-immigration-merger-deadline/7882640
Ok, there were suggestions of corruption. Ok, more than suggestions.
“But senior government sources have backed Mr Michael Pezzullo’s efforts to tackle integrity concerns inside Customs, including pushing the work of Taskforce Pharos and the increased targeting of staff with drug and background checks.
Pharos involves the Australian Crime Commission using its criminal database to examine any suspicious associations and financial activity involving Customs staff.
A senior Customs source said Mr Pezzullo did not disclose the charging of his brother with corruption offences when he updated a Senate committee on May 26 about the Customs corruption scandal because he was being ”legally cautious” and was not aware of the details surrounding it.”
http://www.smh.com.au/national/brother-of-customs-boss-to-be-sentenced-20140609-39t8o.html
Ok, Ok, the bosses brother admitted to corruption, but the boss didn’t know about it. Well, he sort of did. He just didn’t like talking about it. Anyway, they no longer report on corruption. See? Fixed.
What could possibly go wrong when these three morons assume control of agencies from the AG’s department? You know, the AFP and ASIO. Poor Georgy will be in London and will no longer have to concern himself with such trivial things. Remember Georgy? He was the one who ratified “OPCAT” in February.
“Attorney-General George Brandis said the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT) would be ratified by the end of this year.
Australia’s prisons and immigration detention centres would then be monitored by a network of independent inspecting bodies, which could include existing human rights bodies.”
Don’t stress. Dutton immediately clarified that the ratification did not apply to our overseas concentration camps.
“The ratification of the treaty would not affect the Manus Island offshore processing centre because Papua New Guinea has not ratified the same treaty.
The Government of Nauru ratified the treaty in 2013.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-09/australia-pledges-to-ratify-opcat-torture-treaty/8255782
Ok, Ok, Nauru ratified the treaty in 2013 and immediately established no procedure to address it. And they banned any reporting of it. See? Fixed.
So when Dutton assumes control of the empire, they won’t have a computer system, they won’t have corruption and they won’t have any breaches of international treaties and conventions. Well, they might, but they sure as shit won’t have any reporting on it. Otherwise, they can use the AFP and ASIO to investigate. What could go wrong?
Why would Dutton want to be PM? He won’t take a demotion now, surely?
Best case scenario is that talcum gets challenged and beaten by a chair. And nobody else will nominate. That would sort of sum up the vacuum we have lived in for the past three and a half years.
Thank you Mr Brisbane, and commenters. Take care
Whenever I think of Dutton I think of the ‘night man’ in the final verse of Hotel California, addressing the inmates on Manus and Nauru :
Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
“Relax, ” said the night man,
“We are programmed to receive.
You can check-out any time you like,
But you can never leave! “
Terry2, I sort of get stuck on Sunday, bloody Sunday.
“And the battle’s just begun
There’s many lost, but tell me who has won?
The trench is dug within our hearts
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters torn apart”
“And it’s true we are immune
When fact is fiction and TV reality
And today the millions cry
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die”
Take care
We have the chance to turn the pages over
We can write what we want to write
We gotta make ends meet, before we get much older
We’re all someone’s daughter
We’re all someone’s son
How long can we look at each other
Down the barrel of a gun?
You’re the voice, try and understand it
Make a noise and make it clear
Oh-wo-wo-wo, oh-wo-wo-wo
We’re not gonna sit in silence
We’re not gonna live with fear
Oh-wo-wo-wo, oh-wo-wo-wo
This time, we know we all can stand together
With the power to be powerful
Believing we can make it better
__________________
You may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one 🙂
We are people hear us roar in numbers too big to ignore cause we know too much to go back and pretend