OK, this is not well-researched or – indeed – full of the sort of off the record quotes that we’ve come to accept as news, but I can’t help but notice that nobody is doing a count of the Liberals who voted for Turnbull in the leadership challenge who won’t be there if there’s an attempt by Abbott to regain the leadership.
But one can’t help but notice that one of those who voted for Turnbull in the spill, Macfarlane, is going. Now who’s taking his place?
And Bronwyn Bishop – who voted against Abbott rather than for Turnbull – is taking that long helicopter ride into the distance… As opposed to her usual short helicopter ride to her waiting car! Her replacement was endorsed by Abbott just a couple of weeks ago.
All right! That is only two, but like I said this isn’t well-researched or full of quotes from Liberals who’ll tell you anything providing they don’t ever have to admit that they were just telling a journalist something that they wanted reported. But I’d like to remind you that in a contest where the results were 54-44, then two votes the other way isn’t just potentially two votes lost, it’s also potentially two votes won. In other words, it would be 52-46 if they vote the other way. So Turnbull only had a margin of five votes!
Now when one takes into consideration the Turnbull supporters who’ve had to stand down and the IPA members who’ve decided that it’d be better if they were paid by the taxpayer instead of being paid by an organisation that complains when anyone or anything is paid by the taxpayer – (OK, the IPA doesn’t believe that the taxpayer should actually pay taxes until the whole legislative process is privatised, but the fact that Tim Wilson took on a job from an organisation that he thought should be abolished doesn’t make him a hypocrite. Tim Wilson was a hypocrite long before that!)
Anyway, I think I may have left that sentence dangling …
Oh yes, if one takes into consideration the people who supported Turnbull just because he promised them a return to the ministry who are now disappointed and add them to the changes, then my best guess is that he no longer has the numbers… I’m not including Scott Morrison in this, because they took a car ride together a few weeks ago, so it’s obvious that Scott has no regrets about backing Turnbull and will certainly vote for him in any future spill …
Well, not now, but after the election. Assuming, of course, that no seats change hands. Which is pretty silly because there’s never been an election where no seats change hands.
To sum up:
1. Turnbull is screwed whatever!
2. When I repeat things that are true, it sounds like I make no sense; when the political commentators do it, it’s harder to see that they’re just rambling because they use phrases like “sources close to Tony Abbott” and “if this were repeated in a general election”!
3. Nobody is doing a count of the votes Turnbull would actually have, if a spill was called after a state of emergency was called and general elections were postponed until after the High Court had ruled on the challenge to Senate voting.
4. While Sharman Stone’s replacement may be beaten by a National Party member which will be one less vote, but not an extra vote for Abbott, if Sophie Mirabella wins Indi from the Independent I suspect that’ll be another vote for Abbott.
5. It’s amazing that the media keep telling us how popular Malcolm Turnbull is, when it’s clear that even his own party wouldn’t vote for him if there was another alternative…
6. Coal is good for humanity. And by humanity I mean people with shares in a coal mine, because, after all if you don’t have shares in a coal mine can you be considered part of humanity?
