“Just because the press gallery doesn’t know what I’m doing doesn’t mean that I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Malcolm Turnbull
“G’day.”
“G’day.”
“What you reading?”
“This fella’s got a theory about Turnbull.”
“A theory, eh?”
“Yep. He says that he was going to join the Labor Party, but then somebody convinced him that he could do more for the country if he joined the Liberal Party and made them unelectable.”
“That’s a bit hard to believe.”
“Yeah, but look at Turnbull’s performance since becoming PM. Apart from not dissociating himself from comments by Bernardi and Christensen, he’s started to float ridiculous proposals only to turn around and abandon them as soon as they’re criticised.”
“Still, I can’t see that Turnbull would be that self-sacrificing.”
“But what other explanation could there be. If there’s one thing worse for a politicians than having a knuckle-brained idea, it’s agreeing not to try and do it, because then everybody knows it’s a stupid idea. At least if you pretend that you still want to implement it, then you can still pretend it’s ok. If you don’t do that, even your supporters know that you clearly had a bit of a brain fade.”
“Seriously though.”
“Seriously. Why else do you think that the Liberals stuck with the Paid Parental Leave scheme for so long? And what about their NBN policy? And what other reason could the Nationals have for making Barnaby leader?”
“Nah, mate, you’re wrong. That’s not the reason for Turnbull’s poor performance. I know what’s happening.”
“OK then, what’s your theory?”
“Mine’s not a theory. I’ve been told by someone who’s a mate of someone who went to school with Lucy Turnbull who said that she told one of their mutual friends – off the record, of course – exactly what was going on.”
“Yeah, yeah, so what’s going on?”
“Well, Turnbull always wanted to be Prime Minister, and now he’s achieved his ambition.”
“Go on.”
“Nah, that’s it.”
“What do you mean, ‘that’s it’?”
“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? He doesn’t have any reason to be in politics any more… I mean, when he first started he might have had a few ideas, but when he launched his challenge last year, he only got people to back him on the grounds that he wasn’t to actually do anything. And he thought it over and thought, ‘Well, I get to screw Abbott over, and add Prime Minister to my list of achievements’ and so he agreed to it.”
“But what’s that got to do with his pathetic performance?”
“Well, he’s got plenty of money. He’d probably rather be sipping cocktails, overlooking views of Sydney and writing his memoirs. And he’s probably got bored with sitting in Cabinet meetings and the like.”
“So why doesn’t he just quit?”
“He can’t do that. It’d make him look shallow and selfish. So instead, he’s decided to be so wishy-washy that we have no choice but to vote him out … That’s assuming that the Liberals don’t decide that they’d be better off going back to Abbott. Or perhaps even giving someone unknown a go. Preferably someone who nobody’s heard of.”
“You’re saying that he’s deliberately stuffing up to get out of Parliament?”
“Only plausible explanation. I mean, not even Abbott was this bad. At least when Abbott said something, you could be pretty sure that you needed to make a case against it, instead of this ‘We’re going to do this, maybe, no, no, we’re not, somebody didn’t like it, so it’s off the table, but we’ve got another idea, which…oh, that’s not going to work either, well, you can’t say that we’ve got no ideas’ business.”
“Yeah, I see what you mean.”
“According to my source, Malcolm goes home every night and says to Lucy that he’s tried just about everything and the Liberals still haven’t removed him. Sort of the opposite of House of Cards, they talk about what they can do to make sure that he gets to retire, but nothing seems to have worked so far. Then they shake their heads and wonder what more they can do.”
“Then again there is the most likely possibility.”
“What’s that?”
“That when it comes to politics, he really is as useless as he appears.”
