It reminds me of the dying days of Kevin Rudd. No consistent narrative. No reason for being in power other than personal ambition. Nothing to offer but a whirling dervish of political wedges most of which blow straight back on his own party.
Australia’s mentally ill PM is trying desperately to find traction with anything:
Prime Minister Scott Morrison will use a crackdown on domestic and international firearms traffickers – doubling existing firearms offences to 20 years and introducing new aggravated offences carrying lifetime sentences – to drive a wedge in Labor’s left faction, which traditionally opposes mandatory sentencing.
More on the law and order “psycho”:
The government has this week attempted to wedge Labor by reviving legislation to strengthen the character test – a proposal that gives the immigration minister more power to cancel visas. Labor on Wednesday attempted to defuse the fight by signalling it would pass the bill in the House of Representatives despite its concerns about the proposal.
The head of Australia’s counter-espionage agency ASIO also raised concern about the politicisation of national security on Wednesday night, saying it was “not helpful”.
…Allan Gyngell, a former senior diplomat and head of the Office of National Assessments, said there were no substantive policy differences between Labor and the Coalition on China.
…Former ASIO director-general and DFAT secretary Dennis Richardson said he was concerned with any attempt to create “artificial” differences between the Coalition and Labor on China policy and rejected suggestions the opposition had appeased China.
The outgoing Liberal MP, John Alexander, says he would “seriously consider” supporting Helen Haines’s bill for a federal integrity commission if the independent member for Indi again attempts to have the draft legislation debated by parliament before the election.
The New South Wales Liberal party has been told a federal intervention is needed to prevent it becoming in breach of its constitution, raising concerns that such a move would allow Scott Morrison’s preferred candidates to be installed for the federal election.
In an extraordinary meeting of the NSW division held on Wednesday, the state director, Chris Stone, presented legal advice suggesting federal party intervention was required to reappoint members of the state executive until the party’s postponed annual general meeting was held in March.
However, amid a fractious standoff over preselections in NSW, the prospect of federal intervention was met with fierce resistance, with some members of the state executive threatening a supreme court challenge.
…Moderate members of the state executive are also understood to hold concerns the move could result in an effective federal takeover of the division, which could allow Morrison’s centre right faction, represented by Alex Hawke, to install their preferred candidates before the election.
The financial controller who did not reveal a $100,000 donation to independent MP Zali Steggall also failed to disclose a payment from Alex Turnbull, the son of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, to a separate campaign that tried to bring down a Liberal cabinet minister.
Is any of this madness sticking to Labor or the independents? Or is it just reminding everybody how crazy and corrupt the PM is? I’ll go with the latter.
According to Nikki Sava, we’re stuck with the “psycho”:
There are three ways Scott Morrison can be removed as Prime Minister before the election. The first would be if Peter Dutton challenged him. The second would be if Josh Frydenberg challenged him. The third, and the least bloody, would be if his two closest confidantes, Stuart Robert and Ben Morton, told him he should step aside for the good of the Liberal Party because if he stayed, the government would be annihilated.
All three options have been canvassed internally but the chances of any one of them happening is close to zero.
Frydenberg is popular but is a political weakling. That was never going to happen. That tough guy Dutton has no ticker is not surprising, either. This is often the way with conservative politics. It operates on a patronage system of master and apprentice. Challenging an incumbent is more difficult than for the more meritocratic if factionalised left.
Anyway, if it’s all the way with “Psycho” Morrison then that still looks like into oblivion:
Independent candidate for Willoughby Larissa Penn ran her byelection campaign on a budget so small that her volunteers had home-made signs. Her opponent Tim James had the full force of the Liberal Party behind him.
Willoughby was never considered at risk by the NSW Liberals or Premier Dominic Perrottet, yet the community-minded Penn has put the once blue-ribbon seat on a knife-edge and it could swing in Penn’s favour. It’s a remarkable situation, and one that should put the party, both at a state and federal level, on notice.
With no discernible opposition, the seat is still in play with a near 20% swing. If you can’t get alarmed by that as an LNP strategist then you are either brain dead or a furiously praying Pentecostal (or is that a tautology?).
Expect the federal election to throw up many of these. The baseballs bats are out for corrupt pollies in a way that I have never seen before and every attempted wedge only makes it worse.
