When everyone is saying, “We’ve been here before”, they’re wrong.
Watching the events unfold in Canberra on Monday and Tuesday I didn’t get a sense of de ja vu. Of course, there are parallels between Malcolm Turnbull ousting Tony Abbott as Prime Minister and Julia Gillard ousting Kevin Rudd back in 2010. And, again, when Rudd returned the favour to usurp Gillard in 2013.
Of course, the hurt being endured by Tony Abbott this week will mirror the pain that Rudd felt, the pain that Gillard felt.
The foreign minister and deputy leader Julie Bishop described Monday night as some of the toughest hours of her life. “I am not enjoying this at all,” she told The Today Show host Karl Stefanovic yesterday, with the raw emotion clearly visible.
Unseating a Prime Minister is brutal. Always. In that respect, of course, Turnbull’s move on Abbott is the same, but the circumstances are different. Let’s not pretend that isn’t so. Turnbull’s challenge was different.
It was not a knifing that took place in the dead of the night. It was not a challenge without warning. Malcolm Turnbull did not depose a popular political leader.
In February, the party room gave Tony Abbott six months to change and regain their support. In that time, Tony Abbott was not undermined. His frontbench and the backbench were willing to give him the opportunity to turn things around. To cut down on his ‘captain pick’s, to restore due process to Cabinet, to be more consultative, to pursue reform, to turn around the polls.
On almost every measure, Abbott let them down.
“My frustration is this,” Arthur Sinodinos told Leigh Sales on ABC 7.30 on Monday. “People have said to Tony Abbott for a while, “Can you change X, Y or Z?” He promised to change them in February, and then, old issues, old habits have returned and that’s been frustrating. After the spill, I among other people offered to help. But none of us have been allowed to help.
“I was hopeful after the last budget and going into the winter break that we were improving. But, unfortunately, since the winter break, it seems that old habits have returned and there’s been a lack of consultation and a lack of the Prime Minister appearing to trust even his own colleagues and that’s been very disappointing.”
The captain’s picks continued. Cabinet members were left out of deliberations. The economy has stagnated. Unemployment is on the rise. Missteps were common. There were 30 consecutive negative Newspolls in a row.
“We did break promises and we lost that trust and we need a change of leader to begin the process of regaining the trust of the Australian people,” Sinodinos said in a refreshing show of honesty. “If we have that trust, why are we lagging in 30 polls?”
The polls were problematic but Abbott’s demise as PM was not a knee-jerk reaction to poor polling. Poor polling reflected widespread discontent with Tony Abbott. Discontent that he seemed incapable of articulating a vision to the Australian people. Discontent that he had no bold reform agenda to pursue. Discontent that, even if he had a bold agenda or vision to pursue, he had rapidly depleted any political capital he began with, to execute it.
As Arthur Sinodinos put it on Monday night: “If we’d had a more measured approach, if we’d been less cavalier about breaking our promises, we would not have lost the trust of the Australian people and then had to spend nearly nine months, 10 months picking up the pieces from that budget.”
Malcolm Turnbull said as much, in no uncertain terms, on Monday afternoon. He laid his cards on the table and none of those cards were surprising.
“Ultimately, the Prime Minister has not been capable of providing the economic leadership our nation needs… We need a different style of leadership. We need a style of leadership that explains those challenges and opportunities, explains the challenges and how to seize the opportunities. A style of leadership that respects the people’s intelligence, that explains these complex issues and then sets out the course of action we believe we should take and makes a case for it. We need advocacy, not slogans. We need to respect the intelligence of the Australian people.”
He’s right. It has been impossiible to shake the feeling that the PM hasn’t respected our intelligence. He treated voters with something akin to contempt. By denying that he’d broken any promises, when it was patently clear he had. By insisting we were in the midst of “good government”, when it was patently clear we weren’t. By continuing in his position as the Minister for Women, when it was patently clear it was a farce.
By clinging to three word slogans and notions like “on-water matters” to justify unprecedented secrecy. By being pushed – rather than rising of his own accord – to address issues like Bronwyn Bishop’s expense scandal and a response to the humanitarian crisis enveloping Syria and its surrounds.
In so many ways, on so many days, Tony Abbott insulted the intelligence of his colleagues, his peers and us, the Australian public. But it seems, the temptation to continue this remains. Not by him, but by us. By the media.
Too many reports are resorting to the conclusion that this leadership spill is exactly like Labor deposing Rudd and then Gillard. It isn’t. In Rudd’s case, the problems we learned about in hindsight, weren’t played out in clear view. Rudd was not given an opportunity by his party room to turn his performance around.
We have watched Tony Abbott’s demise with our eyes wide open: even the most hardened Liberal stalwarts have been saying this for seven months.
But if we pretend we didn’t see that, if we feign ignorance about the trigger for the change, if we cling to the false premise that this is an act of unforgiveable treason, we will ensure the outcome is the same. We will ensure that Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership is stifled and undermined before it begins.
In Australia we do not directly elect our leaders. There are two checks on Federal government in Australia: general elections and the party room. We vote for the party, the party votes for their leader. That is the way our Westminster system works: as brutal as it is, that is the system we have.
Yesterday the former Prime Minister John Howard conceded that Tony Abbott’s position in the polls was “entrenched”. It was, and he had lost the trust of many of his colleagues. He failed to heed the warning calls or accept offers for help. The party room acted on that, as they are entitled to do.
If our new Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is willing to respect the intelligence of Australians, let’s start by respecting our own intelligence too. Let’s not pretend we don’t know why this happened.
The only hope for Australia to emerge from five years of vicious and destructive politics, is if we are willing to recognise what has been, accept it and look forward.
Malcolm Turnbull’s ascension to Prime Minister doesn’t have to be the beginning of another chapter in political bastardry. But it will be if we let it.
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Top Comments
I came here expecting to read another MM rant about how Gillard's situation was a result of misogyny in Canberra and not comparable to Abbott's situation. How refreshing to read a clear and concise portrayal of actual events and how the various spills truly differ. Thank you.
In my experience, both Rudd and Gillard were more popular than Abbott could ever hope to be after his budget of broken promises. There really should be no coming back from that for him or Hockey, or Corman. It was a shocking betrayal of the electorate, laughed off with a cigar and a few unwise jibes at the poor.
Hopefully Turnbull will accept, as Sinodinos apparently has, that the first budget is such a massive problem that all its broken promises should be dumped at the first opportunity. Community confidence could be quickly restored by assuring people doctor fees are gone, $100,000 uni fees are gone, education and health funding are to be restored and pensions are safe.
I guess the next election campaign will be Turnbull's ultimate test.
Let's be clear about something. Tony Abbott when he finally fronted the media after being rolled, delivered a speech without self-pity or bitterness. He is better than Rudd and Gillard on the vital matter of manners.
Apparently you and I watched totally different press conferences. He certainly sounded bitter when he was whinging about a febrile media culture that he stoked and exploited at every turn in Opposition. He certainly sounded bitter when talking about sniping and backgrounding. He then doesn't turn up for work for the next 2 days but no, he wasn't bitter or self pitying.
I totally disagree. In his speech, Abbott didn't congratulate Turnbull, he again advocated his three word slogans of achievements whilst PM and ended his speech bitterly blaming the media for his downfall. This is the man who applauded his mates in the media when they personally attacked Gillard. He never spoke up back then?
At least Rudd and Gillard spoke to the public immediately after the spills, turned up to Question Time and sat in the backbench facing the humiliation and arrived in person to the GG to resign as PM. Abbott has given the impression of sulking when he waited to confront the public, still hasn't turned up to Question Time and faxed his resignation to the GG.
The speech where he didn't say a single nice thing about Turnbull, lambasted the media who gave him an armchair ride to power, failed to admit any failings, and said he wouldn't snipe while at the same time referring to treachery? The speech he couldn't even bring himself to give on the night? I fail to see how that speech wasn't bitter, or how it showed better manners than Gillard at least.
In short he said "I'm a good guy, I tried hard, it was all the media's fault - this time (but not when if was Gillard and Rudd) - and all praise God and aren't we lucky everyone thinks the Bible's true."
At least, that's what I heard.