|
December 9, 2008
I watched the fourth and final episode of the ABC's The Howard Years that traced the Liberals defeat at the 2007 election and their failure to swap Howard for Costello. Not that the change/renewal would have saved them, as the Liberal Party had run out of ideas and policies. It was on the defensive.
I found the fourth episode more interesting than the others because it went beyond the standard mix of political context and surface comments from key players about political events to incorporate judgements about the success or otherwise of their actions and strategies. So we gained an insight into how their assessment of how they were travelling.
The one dimensional characteristic of the previous episodes was overcome, the political mask was dropped and people started talking as people. What came through was the baggage of the Liberal Party from the Howard years on industrial relations and its head in the sand on climate change. The political ground had shifted and the Coalition looked stranded. The Liberal ship was going down and they knew it.
Today the Liberal Party is deeply divided, not withstanding the hugh, and growing, gap between the Rudd Government's reformist agenda and its actual practice. Instead of standing firm on their own amendments on greater accountability and transparency on Infrastructure funding to prevent funds from being rorted, and on the recent water bill they folded. The former is understandable--blocking necessary investment in an economic crisis but not the latter. The Liberals did not even push for an scientific/hydrological assessment of the water savings even though they had the numbers in the Senate to do it.
|
Malcolm Turnbull was very successful in court as a barrister (as, it might be noted, was Peter "Dollar Sweety" Costello) but trying to cross-examine the government via the news media is a far different thing from leading an effective opposition.
I give him 12 months but the big problems is that once he is deposed from leadership he will be a real pain in the arse to whoever the new leader is.