Julie Bishop Abbott ASSASSIN spending Taxpayers money like a good Labor politician.

Julie Bishop took 70 foreign diplomats on a two-day tour of WA, costing taxpayers $150,000

EXCLUSIVE Simon Benson
National Political Editor
The Daily Telegraph
February 15 2016

TAXPAYERS were charged $2000 an hour for “Celebrity Minister” Julie Bishop to take 70 foreign diplomats on a two-day sightseeing tour of her home state of Western Australia.

Ms Bishop, who is also Foreign Minister, took an entourage of 12 staff with her on the 2014 trip, which cost taxpayers almost $150,000.

The opposition has labelled the trip an “appalling waste of money”, claiming it was an ­indulgence that included a $10,000 dinner, a tour of the Sandalford Estate winery in the Swan Valley and a breakfast by the beach for the Canberra diplomatic corps, which included representatives of some of the wealthiest countries in the world.

There was also a charter flight for almost 100 people to the Pilbara at a cost of $57,000. There they toured the iron ore operations of BHP and Rio Tinto — the two richest mining companies in the world.

The bill would have been significantly higher had the diplomats not paid for their own airfares to Perth and their accommodation while there.

Ms Bishop, who is becoming increasingly known for her red carpet appearances and glamorous lifestyle, compared the cost of the trip to one Kevin Rudd made in 2011 to Queensland.

“Diplomatic corps visits are a longstanding practice supported by both sides of government dating back to 2000,” Ms Bishop told a Senate estimates hearing last week.

“The total cost incurred by the Australian government for the diplomatic corps visit to Western Australia was $145,200, or $2016.67 including GST per head of mission.

“This is comparable to the 2011 diplomatic corps visit to Queensland hosted by former foreign minister Kevin Rudd which cost $1978.77 including GST per head of mission when adjusted for inflation.”

The opposition has described Ms Bishop’s response as offensive because Mr Rudd’s trip — on which he took 100 foreign ambassadors and high commissioners — was part of the crisis recovery expedition in the wake of Cyclone Yasi.

“It is incredibly offensive for Ms Bishop to compare her sightseeing tour of WA to Mr Rudd escorting diplomats to Queensland in 2011 to demonstrate the state’s recovery after Cyclone Yasi,” Labor’s Wastewatch committee spokesman Pat Conroy said.

“This is a pathetic attempt to excuse the waste and misuse of taxpayers’ money. Last year Julie Bishop spent $125,000 on a tour of South Australia, and on that occasion she took nine staff and a few state Liberal MPs along with her.


“We also caught her taking three staffers along to a $350-a-head dinner, clearly more than are necessary.

“When the taxpayer is footing the bill for these functions, you’ve got to consider whether every expense is necessary.”

Julie Bishop WTF are you doing?

We should reject UN’s sick circus

Andrew Bolt 
Herald Sun
October 1, 2015 

WELL, that didn’t take long. Just two weeks as Prime Minister and Malcolm Turnbull is already promising to lick the boots of the tyrants who infest the United Nations.

Yes, the Turnbull Government is asking for the tremendous honour of joining the UN’s Human Rights Commission.

And if we’re really good, Australia may join some of the moral paragons on that body supervising our human rights — China, Congo, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.

No, that’s not a joke. These countries really are judges on a UN body meant to save us from exactly such thugs, thieves, theocrats and dictators. We will legitimise a pack of hypocrites we should shun and, in joining, will put ourselves at their level.

Sure, the Left is cheering, but check the company we’ll keep. Across the table will be Russia, which has stolen Crimea, invaded Ukraine and supplied to rebels the missile and the men that shot down the MH17 jet carrying Australian citizens.

Also rubbing shoulders with us will be the Saudi autocrats, about to behead and crucify Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, who protested for democracy in 2012, when he was only 17. And we’ll nod thoughtfully as the communist autocrats ruling China, Cuba and Vietnam define for us what should be meant by “human rights”.

I hope the UN’s showers are industrial strength.

Don’t believe the sanctimonious drivel about how joining such bodies does not compromise our beliefs. Horse manure. To win our temporary seat on the Security Council the Rudd government diverted hundreds of millions of dollars of aid money to African countries whose votes we needed.

Worse, to further curry favour with an important bloc of Muslim votes we saw Rudd as foreign affairs minister sucking up to Arab autocracies while attacking democratic Israel’s nuclear weapons program.

Then there’s the humiliating self-abasement in crawling for the votes of inferior countries. Labor foreign affairs spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek gave a perfect example yesterday, wondering whether “the massive cuts to our aid budget make it impossible for Australia to be a good global citizen”.

“The Australian Government will certainly have some explaining to do during the course of its bid for the human rights council spot.”

Pardon? We have to defend our human rights record to countries that have voted already for a gaggle of dictators?

Only a fool coached in our universities of Western self-loathing could think the UN is a better arbiter of our goodness than we are ourselves.

But I should cut Malcolm Turnbull some slack. Joining this sick circus might not be his fault.

Perhaps he simply couldn’t say no to Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop, given her secret help to snatch the top job from Tony Abbott.

I mean, have you seen how Bishop is partying at the UN? There she was again this week, addressing the UN General Assembly like a world leader, with her boyfriend rubbernecking beside her in a seat normally meant for officials doing business for Australia.

The day before, some anonymous leaker boasted to a friendly Fairfax journalist that the UN’s “doors ... have mysteriously swung open” to Bishop now that her boss was Turnbull and not Abbott, so rude to thugs.

Gosh, she’d even “received a last-minute invitation to attend a Sunday lunch being hosted by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for the leaders of about 20 nations to discuss climate change”.

Now, which serial leaker would have leaked that, Julie? And note how eagerly Bishop pays homage to the UN’s multi-billion-dollar green faith, like it’s the entry price to a feed.

Ooh, but how exciting it all is for Bishop. Between gigs at the UN, she even had a star-studded dinner party in Manhattan, which the dutiful reporter noted was “a more raucous affair”, “full of big names” including actor Hugh Jackman and wife Deborra-lee Furness, Mariah Carey, Robert De Niro and glamorous more.

Marvellous. Imagine how many more hot invitations come Bishop’s way once we join the Human Rights Council.

So I was not surprised that someone — you again, Julie? — briefed journalists how Bishop had tricked that silly Abbott when he tried to stop this bid, first launched by Labor, to join a council Abbott considered “discredited”.

According to a Fairfax reporter in New York, Bishop had “been ordered by Mr Abbott to abandon the bid, an about face that might have caused Australia diplomatic embarrassment”, but “Bishop was yet to carry out the instruction when Mr Turnbull deposed Mr Abbott”.

Smart work, Bishop! A cunning delay.

How the UN will reward you. How dictators will laugh. And how Australians will pay.

----------------------------

Tony Abbott first interview since leadership coup with Ray Hadley.

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott interviewed by Ray Hadley

Lanai Scarr National Political Reporter
The Daily Telegraph
September 29,2015.

TONY Abbott is confident he would have won the next election had he been left as Prime Minister.

The dumped PM, who lost his job to Malcolm Turnbull in a coup two weeks ago, this morning dismissed negative opinion polls and said he had never done well in public opinion polls.

“I am confident that if I had continued at head of this government that’s what we would have had (a victory),” Mr Abbott told 2GB’s Ray Hadley.

“If you look at my polling I’ve always done badly in the polls.

“You can be not popular in the ratings and at the same time lead a very effective opposition and government.”

Mr Abbott said internal party polling in the lead up to the Canning by-election showed the Liberal party would have won 57 per cent of the vote which is about what the final result was on the day.

He said the timing of the leadership spill was carefully coordinated to ensure a challenge was successful.

Turnbull wins Liberal leadership

“Because a strong result in Canning would have put paid to this notion that somehow I wouldn’t survive the next election,” Mr Abbott said.

He said he was doing OK after losing the nation’s top job, however was still not yet ready to make a decision on his future.

“57-years-old is still young,” he said of his age.

“I’m not ready to retire and I still have a lot to contribute to public life.”

Mr Abbott also lamented that he never watched his back while Prime Minister which may have led to his demise.

“I never believed in watching my own back,” Mr Abbott said in his first public interview since being rolled.

“Any leader who is watching his back is not focusing on the main job at hand. If the leader ever starts to play internal politics than the leader is in trouble.

“I always knew that politics was a brutal bruising business. It is a game of snakes and ladders and I’ve got a snake at the moment.”

Mr Abbott urged voters to stick with the Coalition at the next election and Malcolm Turnbull as Prime Minister.

“I can appreciate there are a lot of people out there who are dismayed by what has happened,” he said.

“But it would be even worse if we end up with the sixth prime minister in six years.”

Mr Abbott also denied that he ever thought about cutting loose former Treasurer Joe Hockey and his chief-of-staff Peta Credlin in order to placate any push for a change of leader.

“The idea that those people hungry for advancement would be mollified by if Joe went or my chief-of-staff is just wrong,” he said.

“They were not going to be put off if they were thrown a few human sacrifices and it is wrong to feed this beast.

“Joe and I were blood brothers when it comes to economic policy. The idea that I would have sacrificed Joe to save myself is just dead wrong.”

Mr Abbott also refused to weigh in on if he felt betrayed by his former deputy Julie Bishop and close ally Scott Morrison.

“I’d rather focus on the good work that they did,” he said.

“In the end all of us have got to answer to God and our consciousnesses and I am not going to get into who should have said what.”

On Scott Morrison in particular, Mr Abbott said: “At some point in time I’m sure we’ll have a conversation and we will resolve these things.”

Mr Abbott also urged politicians to stop the revolving door of prime ministers for the sake of the nation.

“This is a real problem for our country. The government can’t do what is necessary if you are subject to death by polls,” he said.

“We’ve had five prime ministers in five years. We are worse than Italy and only just better than Greece.

“For a country that has always had stable and effective government this is hardly the face we want to put to the world.”


Malcolm Turnbull acted when he did because he knew Canning by-election would strengthen Tony Abbott

Daniel Meers
The Daily Telegraph
September 29 2015.

FORMER Prime Minister Tony Abbott says Malcolm Turnbull executed him the week before the Canning by-election because he was on track for a strong result at the Canning ballot box.

In a 30 minute interview with Radio 2GB host Ray Hadley, aired live on television, Mr Abbott said his executioners were aware internal polling in Canning showed the government was on track for 57 per cent of the vote.

“One of the reasons why the ballot had to be brought on the week it was brought on by the proponents of a ballot was because a strong result in Canning, which is what we were going to get, would have put 

paid to this notion that somehow I was unelectable because of the polls,’’ he said.

-------------------------------------------

The Truth about Tony Abbott............

Loss of Tony Abbott as prime minister is a time of sorrow

Andrew Bolt
The Daily Telegraph
September 28 2015

NOW Tony Abbott is gone I can finally tell the truth about him. Folks, you made a big mistake with this bloke.

No, no. The mistake wasn’t that you voted for him.

In fact, you got one of the finest human beings to be Prime Minister.

In many ways he seemed too moral for the job, yet he achieved more in two years than the last two Labor prime ministers achieved in six.

Compare. Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard left us with record deficits after blowing billions on trash — on overpriced school halls, “free” insulation that killed people, green schemes that collapsed, “stimulus” checks to the dead.

They meanwhile opened our borders to 50,000 illegal immigrants and drowned 1200. They hyped the global warming scare and forced us to pay a job-killing carbon tax just to pretend they were saving us.

But Abbott? I won’t go through the whole list: how he stopped the boats, curbed spending, scrapped the useless carbon and mining taxes, led the world’s defiance of deadly Russian strongman Vladimir Putin and made us safer from terrorism.

He even signed three free trade deals to secure jobs for our kids — including one with China that the last three governments couldn’t clinch.

And he did all this in the face of astonishing heckling and even vilification from our media class, and despite often feral opposition in the Senate.

But your mistake was not to care about all that. Deeds didn’t count with you. Image was all.

And so you told the pollsters you didn’t like Abbott. You believed the vicious crap written about him, until his MPs finally panicked and dumped him.

Your mistake was that you couldn’t look behind the flim flam — the way Abbott looked, the way he spoke, the way he walked, the way he ate an onion — to see what he’d actually done for you and for your country.

You even laughed at some of his finest qualities and emblems of his public service. Journalists ridiculed his work as a lifesaver by mocking his costume and body hair. They dismissed his fire fighting service as just a photo-op. Wrote off his patriotism as bigotry.

When he defended women, he was called insincere. When he warned that our finances were in strife or that terrorism menaced us, they called him a scaremonger.

And you believed them. You let people treat like absolute dirt a man who had a record of volunteerism no prime minister has equalled — working in Aboriginal communities, lifesaving, firefighting, helping people in natural disasters, and raising money for women’s shelters and a hospice for dying children.

And none of it was done just to puff his CV for an election pamphlet.

The only reason I know Abbott helped people secure their homes after one Sydney storm is that my wife’s uncle asked the head of the team getting the tree off his house if that really was Abbott over there, helping to cut it away.

Shush, said the captain. He doesn’t like people knowing.

Now, I must declare straight up — I call Tony Abbott a friend.

So you’ll call me biased. You’ll laugh that I can write this massive praise of him when almost everyone else is horse-laughing. And you’ll say that’s why I see more qualities in Abbott than are actually there.

BLOG WITH ANDREW BOLT

But you’ll just be making another mistake.

See, I don’t think Abbott is a great man because he’s my friend. He’s my friend because he’s a great man. Greater than the people who tore him down.

He’s my friend especially because he’s not those things that so many journalists wrote — including some who must have known what they wrote were lies.

Truth is that Abbott is not a thug, bully, racist, fool, liar, woman-hater, homophobe or bigot. He’s not cruel or lacking compassion.

If he were any of those things he would not be my friend. Those are deal breakers for me. Those I love best are people of honour, warmth and kindness.

Tony Abbott is one such man, and that he has been betrayed and deposed doesn’t just break my heart. It makes me fear for this country. I can only hope that Australians will one day wake up to what they’ve tossed away.

Sorry to sound so melodramatic, but here are some glimpses of the man I know — ones that put the lie to the trash that even big-name correspondents peddled about him.

A woman hater? Ask his daughters or female chief of staff. Ask the many women on his staff, so loyal that he had one of the lowest turnovers of modern prime ministers.

A crash-through insensitive bully with no people skills? Ask my children how gentle he was when he called around. Ask one of my 2GB listeners, Pat, who rang in to say how moved he was that Abbott, on the way to a crucial Question Time on the day the carbon tax was repealed, still had the time to ring Pat’s dying brother.

Or consider this: just minutes after Malcolm Turnbull told Abbott he was challenging for his job, Abbott still honoured a promise to meet girl guides, rather than hit the phones to save himself.

Too loyal? Well, true, yet when I once asked why he wouldn’t buy off his critics by sacking Joe Hockey as Treasurer, Abbott told me he knew Hockey actually had the talent to be great, and would be if given another chance.

A homophobe? Abbott actually had a deep friendship with one of my friends, too, the out-and-proud gay commentator Christopher Pearson, and even helped carry the coffin of this much-missed man.

In fact, when one Fairfax writer this year accused Abbott — on entirely fictitious evidence — of having had a “possibly homophobic” moment, a gay adviser on Abbott’s staff texted me in rage: “If PM was so homophobic he wouldn’t be sharing the C1 car with me.”

Every Prime Minister thinks they don’t get the press they deserve. But I bet Abbott’s friends would agree that none could have been so different in the flesh from what you read in the papers — and so much better. Shame on the journalists responsible for this great slander.

Yes, I know Abbott made mistakes, and I was hard on the worst. I know he was too stubborn. And I know he was clumsy in selling himself.

I admit I even quarrelled with him privately when he too-nobly refused to whack Labor leader Bill Shorten over some detail of national security.

No, the country before politics, he declared. I could have shaken the silly bugger, who played politics like it was cricket when everyone else was cage fighting.

God, he wouldn’t even do the populist thing and just promise to build our next submarines in Adelaide, and to hell with the cost or national interest.

But that was Abbott, and for me character always counts in the end.

That’s why I say: this country has despised and rejected a great servant. It is a time of sorrow.

------------------------------------

Alan Jones and Lord Monckton on why Australian PM Had to go

Alan Jones and Lord Monckton, September 23 2015

Alan Jones and Angus Taylor, September 3 2014.

Lord Monckton 2014

Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull announces new Affirmative Action Cabinet

Australia's Finest forced to walk with Australia's lowest.

Imagine the revulsion Andrew Hastie must have felt when forced to walk the media campaign walk with the traitorous piece of shit on his left,as his by election campaign wound up for today's Canning By Election.

A former Australian SAS Officer who was prepared to lay down his life for Australia forced to walk along side that traitorous Bitch and Turnbull Groupie Julie Bishop,must have been difficult for him to say the least.

I have not seen her pictured with her  "Beard" lately perhaps he, unlike Madame Gillard's male consort Tim what's his name had a little more self respect.

Best of luck for Andrew Hastie for today, if he is successful lets hope he is able to rid the Liberal Party of the likes of Bishop and her "dear friend" Turnbull as soon as possible.

Australia's Finest cheer Tony Abbott as he leaves office and makes his way home to Sydney's Northern Beaches.

Moving tribute for ousted PM Tony Abbott before last hurrah at Kirribilli House

Ben McClellan
The Daily Telegraph
September 19 2015.

AS he boarded his Royal Australian Air Force VIP jet for the last time, former Prime Minister Tony Abbott was given a round of applause by the crew in military uniform.

The touching gesture to a man, known on board as down to earth and polite, at Fairbairn air base in Canberra yesterday afternoon started Mr Abbott’s short trip to Sydney where he joined wife Margie to finish packing up their prime ministerial lives at Kirribilli House.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull departed in another RAAF jet an hour later.

Mr Abbott greeted his wife with a hug in the doorway before changing out of his suit and trademark blue tie and donning a blue jumper and jeans before packing his car.

Strapping his kayak to the top of his 1995 Mercedes-Benz 280, which he famously claimed in 2010 did not make him a “silvertail” because it was 15 years old, the former prime minister appeared like any 

other man moving home.

Margie Abbott scooped up their family dog Maisie as she carried flowers and a tennis ball thrower for the dog,

Why Abbott had to GO

Speaking publicly for the second time since his ousting on Monday, Mr Abbott told reporters outside the iconic waterfront property it had been a “tremendous honour” to serve his nation.

“Shortly, Margie and I will be driving out of Kirribilli House for the last time as residents,” he said.

“To the people of Australia, it has been a tremendous, a tremendous, honour to be your prime minister and I thank you very, very much indeed,” he said.

The Abbotts left in separate cars with Mr Abbott waving to the media as he drove off.

Despite driving off , he later returned to host a 40-year reunion for his former St Ignatius College classmates at Kirribilli House.

The swanky party for about 60 people was to celebrate a Saint Ignatius College, Riverview school reunion.

Mr Abbott could be seen swigging a beer as he eagerly awaited the class of 1975.

The first busload of guests arrived at 7.15pm on a Murrays Coach.

Mr Abbott barely showed his face outdoors except to meet and greet former school mates.

From beyond the gates of Kirribilli House, loud laughter, cheers and the rattling of bottles could be heard.
Just before 8pm a Murrays coach full of Mr Abbott’s former classmates arrived at the gate of the lodge.

The event had been planned a while ago and is being privately funded. Funds raised will go to charity, The Australian reports.

After two years at Kirribilli House, with its charming period setting and stunning harbour views, the Abbotts are set to return to their suburban home in the northern beaches suburb of Forestville.

Turnbull and Co might just pay for their disgraceful lack of character

Why Tony Abbott was dumped.Lord Monckton and The Great American Bubble Machine

Malcolm Turnbull will fail if he can’t heal the Liberal Party

Andrew Bolt 
The Daily Telegraph
September 17, 2015 

PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s biggest problem isn’t Bill Shorten. No, knocking off that soiled Labor leader should be a cinch. Far more dangerous to Turnbull are the Liberals disgusted by the treachery and deceit that went into assassinating former leader Tony Abbott.

There is almost a revulsion among influential MPs, not just with Turnbull but his deputy, Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop. There is even anger with Scott Morrison, until now a hero of conservatives and about to become Turnbull’s treasurer.

For some this is now a moral question. They know they should be loyal to their party. They know Turnbull can beat Shorten. And they know their duty is to help Turnbull do that, given how unfit Shorten is to lead this country.

Yet Turnbull’s plotters make their skin crawl. I’ve talked to MPs, even moderates, who are sickened. Some wonder why they got into politics or even whether they should join a new party. That just adds venom to the anger that many conservative Liberals already feel for Turnbull — for a man of the Left they think has hijacked their party.

Let me give three examples of the scheming that makes it hard for Turnbull to expect much loyalty in return.

First, there was Julie Bishop’s disloyal silence. As deputy Liberal leader, Bishop had a duty to warn Abbott of threats to his leadership.

Yet on Channel 10’s The Project this week, she admitted she had heard of the planned challenge to Abbott — announced on Monday — “in the days beforehand”, although she later claimed “I had no idea of the timing until the day before”.

But Bishop did not warn Abbott of Turnbull’s plot until Monday. She’d been waiting to have the reports “confirmed by others”, she said.

Oh, really?

To add to the suspicion, when Abbott rang Bishop’s mobile last Saturday to discuss rumours of this challenge, Bishop did not answer and took a full day to ring back. No wonder, perhaps. Bishop had spent that Saturday at a Sydney charity event where she’d met Turnbull.

That’s been too much for Liberal Premier Colin Barnett, of Bishop’s home state of Western Australia. He accused her of “duplicity”, adding: “And there’s probably been some disloyalty.”

Second, there was Scott Morrison’s refusal to help Abbott defeat Turnbull. Morrison, the Liberal who stopped the boats, was emerging as Abbott’s natural successor and the star of the Liberals’ conservative wing. On Monday morning, just hours before Turnbull sprang his trap, Morrison insisted on 2GB he had “no idea” of any possible challenge. He said he was an Abbott supporter, so “if they were (plotting) they would not be talking to me”.

Interesting to hear Morrison talking to Hadley the morning of the coup he maintains total ignorance of. Tomorrow he will again appear on the Hadley show It will be an interesting show to say the least.

Yet later that day Morrison refused Abbott’s offer to be deputy Liberal leader on a joint ticket with Abbott against Turnbull and Bishop.

He was also effectively refusing to be Abbott’s new treasurer, since the deputy has their pick of portfolios.

True, Abbott was even then still foolishly reluctant to sack his existing Treasurer, the embattled Joe Hockey.

His offer really meant it was up to Morrison to sack Hockey and run against Bishop. But had Morrison said yes to Abbott’s offer, he and his five supporters would have helped to defeat Turnbull and would have encouraged other Liberal waverers to join them. A yes would also have meant that Morrison, a Pentecostal Christian conservative opposed to gay marriage, would have saved a fellow conservative from a Leftist and gay-marriage crusader

Yet Morrison chose not to fight for Abbott or for his beliefs. While privately telling Liberals and some journalists he remained an Abbott supporter, he gave no press conference to defend him and his coterie of MPs voted for Turnbull.

True, Morrison figured Abbott had poor judgment and was not a long-term bet. He also didn’t want to be in a contest with Bishop or in Abbott’s fight with Turnbull and will still get his reward — Hockey’s job as Treasurer. But where was the fighting for principle?

And then there was the sabotage.

Abbott, at his farewell press conference, denounced the “white-anting” by Liberal MPs, the “self-serving claims” peddled to journalists by his anonymous critics to do the work of “the assassin’s knife”.

It is too easily forgotten that Abbott by May had largely recovered in the polls, even drawing level with Labor in one. Journalists had started to question Shorten’s leadership instead. But Abbott’s recovery was then blown up. He was rocked by another burst of leaks, destabilisation and distractions by his own side that continued right up until Monday.

For instance, friendly journalists were told Bishop had warned Abbott to sack Hockey and that she’d told colleagues that Labor seemed to be running dead in next Saturday’s Canning by-election (allegedly to ensure the unpopular Abbott stayed prime minister until next year’s election). Abbott’s poll figures collapsed. They’d got him.

But, sure, no change of leaders is painless. And Turnbull’s plotters are right: they have given the Liberals a leader more popular than the man he replaced. By making the Liberals more electable, they may have done the party a big favour. And isn’t their higher loyalty to the party, not to Abbott, whose mistakes caused more damage than anything done by the plotters?

Yet many Liberal voters seem red-hot with anger. On Monday, more than 1000 sent me angry emails and messages, almost all abusing Turnbull and most saying they could never vote for the Liberals again if he led them. Callers to conservative talk shows are also spitting chips.

Conservatives were always going to be furious about having their party stolen by the Left. But many are now appalled by the treachery as well.

Alternative Conservative Party for disaffected Liberal Voters with the final say going to Stephanie Legendary Conservative 2GB caller

So this is now Turnbull’s great challenge. It will take all his charm and persuasiveness to heal a division that could wreck his campaign and even split his party.

He has already had one expensive reminder that many government MPs simply do not trust his word or his instincts. Take the Nationals, whose 15 House of Representatives MPs are needed by the Liberals to form government.

The Nationals on Tuesday arced up at Turnbull’s election as Liberal leader. They refused to back any government led by him until he’d signed a deal with them.

They know Turnbull is a warming alarmist and a bit carried away by his own brilliance. So they made Turnbull not only promise to spend $2 billion more on the Nationals’ pet schemes, but to guarantee he would not change Abbott’s policies on gay marriage and global warming.

Oh, and he had to give Nationals deputy leader Barnaby Joyce control over water policy.

That’s why Abbott took so long on Tuesday to formally resign. He had to wait for Turnbull to sign the Nationals’ deal. Until then, Turnbull couldn’t guarantee he had support in Parliament to form government.

That is just one sign of the tensions that threatens Turnbull most. So forget Shorten. He won’t much bother Turnbull.

No, Turnbull’s first big campaign must be not to destroy Labor but to heal the Liberals he now leads.

Un electable Malcolm Turnbull steals Prime Ministership from elected PM Tony Abbott

Malcolm Turnbull stole the prime ministership he could not have won


Andrew Bolt
Herald Sun
September 15, 2015.

MALCOLM Turnbull has replaced Tony Abbott as Prime Minister because the Liberals let his bull weaken their nerve and bury their judgment.

Here’s Turnbull’s challenge in a nutshell: he stole the prime ministership he could not have won in an election.

He stole it by boasting of superior communication skills he does not have.

He will now campaign on successes by Abbott he could not have achieved himself.

And he will now be the leader of a party he cannot unite.

What have the Liberals done? Many of their members will be distraught and disgusted.

Whether Turnbull wins the next election or loses, conservative Liberals will feel they have lost already, now that a man of such “progressive” views has snatched the leadership of their party.

Eleven things you should know about Malcolm Turnbull

They may as well vote Labor next time, because only if Labor wins could they again have a party for conservatives.

Sure, Turnbull has one big advantage over Abbott.

The media and the Twittersphere have been absolutely feral in savaging Abbott, a man awkward in his own defence, but have been kind to Turnbull.

But the media always favours Labor in any contest, and what the media gives Turnbull today it could withdraw tomorrow.

True, Turnbull also has a gravitas that Abbott does not, and is undeniably clever.

Yet everything about his challenge rang false, including the timing — just four days before a by-election in the Perth seat of Canning.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MALCOLM TURNBULL

And that timing says it all about Turnbull. He put his own interests above his party’s, sabotaging not just the Government with his leaks and digs, but now also sabotaging a by-election campaign by a great Liberal candidate, former SAS captain Andrew Hastie.

The latest two polls show Canning would have been won comfortably by the Liberals, despite weeks of destabilising leaks by supporters of Turnbull and his partner in assassination, Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop.

I suspect that is why Turnbull called the challenge, in case the Canning result was good and his case for immediate change wrecked.

So let’s analyse Turnbull’s laughable claims on Monday to be the man to take over the Government.

At his press conference, he claimed Abbott had “not been successful in providing the economic leadership our nation needs”.

Really? Under Abbott there was no mad Labor-style Budget blowout or pink batts disaster. His failings have not been in administering but in selling; not in doing, but in seeming.

True, the Senate, thanks to Labor and the Greens, has blocked the deeper Budget cuts we need, but would Turnbull have any more success in cutting handouts?

No, Abbott’s economic record is as good as could be hoped, given the Senate and a media determined to see every cut as cruel.

The truth is that Turnbull singled out only one Abbott economic measure: Abbott’s free trade deal with China — but not to condemn it.

It was the opposite: Turnbull signalled it would be his main weapon against Labor, just as Abbott himself had intended.

Turnbull claimed that if Abbott had stayed, Bill Shorten would have won the next election, and he was “utterly unfit to be prime minister” because of his “catastrophically reckless” opposition to Abbott’s China deal.

Pardon? That was Abbott’s deal and Abbott’s plan of attack, yet Turnbull now announces it’s his big weapon for showing the economic leadership Abbott never did?

Give me a break.

No, Turnbull’s pitch lay in one thing only — his claim to be a better communicator than Abbott.

Turnbull repeated all the Labor lines against Abbott.

“We need a different style of leadership,” he said, one which “explains those (economic) changes ... and the course of action we should take” and “respects the people’s intelligence”.

In short, “we need advocacy, not slogans”.

And Turnbull, we’re invited to believe, is just the man to give us an impressive lecture about the economy, not a slogan.

But wait. Wasn’t this exactly what crippled Turnbull when he was Opposition Leader? Remember him then, wanting to explain in 15 minutes what the TV news needed condensed into 15 seconds?

So where is the evidence that Turnbull really is a better communicator? That wasn’t his record as Opposition Leader and it hasn’t been his record as Communications Minister.

What has he said that makes you understand what he’s doing with the National Broadband Network? What glove has he landed on anyone, other than Abbott?

But if Turnbull is no great communicator, is he a cannier political strategist? The answer again is no.

Check his record. Turnbull as Opposition Leader backed Labor’s emissions trading scheme, the issue that split his party and cost him his job.

Abbott took over and turned Labor’s carbon tax into a deadly political weapon, first against Kevin Rudd and then Julia Gillard..

Labor is still promising a form of carbon tax — the one Turnbull once supported in principle and has never disavowed.

For Abbott this would have been a great weapon again in the next election. Under Turnbull it will become an embarrassment at best and potentially another party-splitter.

Abbott had also neatly defused the same-sex marriage debate that could also have split his party, letting the people decide the issue in a vote after the election — a compromise backed by the public but which Turnbull, a gay marriage crusader, again opposed.

And would Turnbull, a darling of the Left, ever have the uncompromising determination that saw Abbott deliver on his “stop the boats” slogan — another election winner? Would he have given lectures instead?

So count them. Turnbull called it wrong on global warming. He called it wrong on a public vote on same-sex marriage. He lacks the clarity of Abbott’s “stop the boats” message.

So what else has he got? Oh, yes, he promised he would be more consultative than Abbott, but that, too, was not his record as leader, and it is still curiously difficult to tell him a fact that does not fit his theories.

That leaves Turnbull boasting of just one thing: his smooth tongue, and (unsaid) a friendlier media.

He’d better start talking fast.