THEIR Malcolm: How long can Malcolm Turnbull stick with his new 'conservative" message, before he reverts to type?

Malcolm Turnbull’s rise is a defeat for conservatives that looks a lot like victory


Andrew Bolt
Herald Sun
September 24 2015.


THE media Left is gloating. They’ve won and knuckle-dragging conservatives like me and

Alan Jones have lost. Our man, Tony Abbott, is gone as prime minister. Their man, Malcolm Turnbull, rules.

“Ha, ha, ha,” they point out.

Or as the ABC, the taxpayer-funded voice of the Left, put it on Monday, suck it up, Jones and Bolt.

“Once again, it’s remarkable that Abbott was felled despite their support,” crowed Media Watch host Paul Barry. “And it shows how little power they actually have.”

He’s right. Alan and I are shocked we couldn’t get every single Australian to back Abbott, when the only thing against us was the $1 billion-a-year ABC, the anti-Abbott smear factory of Fairfax and the rest of the army of media orcs: SBS, Guardian, Daily Mail, The Monthly, The Project, FM hosts, half the News Corp empire and the Canberra bureaus of every TV station.

Humiliating, I know, but Alan and I proved in the end surprisingly powerless against the others, too — the academics, the race industry, the professional victims, the climate cranks, the multicultural commissars, the free speech police and all the other arbiters of Good Taste.

So boo hoo hoo, we cry. We helped get Abbott elected, but couldn’t save him. But at the ABC it’s party, party. Abbott used to be treated like filth there, but it’s all hugs and kisses now for Turnbull, the ABC’s favourite Liberal.

This, swear to God, is an actual transcript from Monday’s 7.30:

Host Leigh Sales (giggling): I’m sorry I’m laughing, but you’re not at the dispatch box and you’re not at the bar, so I’ve got to squeeze in one more question before we run out of time.

Turnbull (beaming): One more question. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Sales (looking flirtatious): I’m sorry. I’m sorry to be rude like that too.

Turnbull: You’re not being rude at all. It’s quite understandable.

Sales: The — no, no, I did cut you directly off.

Turnbull: That’s fine.

So, yes, I should feel like Samson after a haircut. But here’s the funny thing. We’ve actually won. Me and Alan. We’ve house-trained Turnbull.

Remember what Turnbull used to be like? He headed the Australian Republican Movement and even donated to Labor’s campaign against the Howard government. He trashed opponents of same-sex marriage. He backed Labor’s carbon tax.

But we knocked him into shape, Alan and I. Now behold our neo-Turnbull. This new model refuses to back Labor’s carbon tax and promises to let the public, not the politicians, decide on same-sex marriage.

Turnbull yesterday seemed even to be reading our script on unions and Labor, attacking Labor leader Bill Shorten as just “a cork in the slipstream of the CFMEU”, the most lawless of unions.

And his new ministers stuck to our messages, too. His Communications Minister, who once called for the ABC to be privatised, said yesterday the Abbott government had been right to slash the ABC’s budget.

The Islamic State was still our great threat, assured the new Defence Minister. We’re spending too much, repeated the new Treasurer. And the penny is dropping with some on the Left. Where’s Malcolm? Where’s their Malcolm?

Take warmist Bernie Fraser, former chairman of the Government’s Climate Change Authority. Turnbull “is just sticking with the status quo” on global warming, Fraser groaned this week. “His courage deserted him.”

But Alan and I aren’t kidding ourselves. Yes, we’ve tamed the Turnbull and painted new spots on him. But we know that underneath that painted fur remains a leopard of the Left, fighting his natural instincts.

Take yesterday. Asked by a journalist if he’d change the policies that stopped the boats, Turnbull couldn’t say no — the clear answer that deters people smugglers best, but jars at Point Piper dinners parties.

“I have the same concerns about the situation of people on Nauru and Manus as you do,” he pleaded. (Code: It’s really me, Malcolm, under these Right-wing spots.) “(But) we are not going to make policy changes — particularly the type you’re talking about — on the run.”

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton had to clean up afterwards, insisting Turnbull was “resolute” and illegal immigrants would not land.

Alan and I also remember how easily Kevin Rudd shook off his own training. Rudd promised us before the 2007 election he, too, would be a John Howard-lite and that “this sort of reckless spending must stop”.

Yet after the election was won, the real Rudd re-emerged, even lavishing “stimulus” cheques on the dead.

Perhaps we’ll see the same backsliding with Turnbull, but until then, Alan and I will bask in our success.

Behold our neo-Turnbull. Let the Left weep.