Barnaby Falls On His Feet

16 Responses to Barnaby Falls On His Feet

1. C.L. says:

   30 May, 2022 at 1:29 am

   Peta Credlin: Darren Chester no match for a warrior like Barnaby Joyce

   Darren Chester was nowhere that mattered the last time the Coalition was out of office and only promoted under the Turnbull regime, which says everything you need to know about his core beliefs, writes Peta Credlin.

   ——————-

   The one party in the federal Coalition to hold all its seats last weekend was the National Party. Yet Darren Chester, a dumped former Minister who looks and sounds a lot like a Green these days, says he’s going to challenge Barnaby Joyce for the leadership – not because Joyce failed to win votes for the Nats in the bush but because he failed to win votes for the Libs in the poshest of inner-city seats.

   Go figure!

   But what would Chester know anyway? He was nowhere that mattered the last time the Coalition was out of office and was only promoted under the Turnbull regime, which says everything you need to know about his core beliefs.

   Instead, it was warriors like Joyce who held the Rudd-Gillard government to account because opposition is hard, there’s little support, no public service to tell you what to think, so the best leaders are those that have a history of standing for something and are genuinely connected to the people they represent.

   Defeat is always hard to take. Sensible MPs, though, accept that no government lasts forever, that changes of government are essential for functioning democracy, and that defeat is actually a chance to rethink, regroup and come back stronger than ever.

   And this defeat was hardly a rejection of centre-right politics. Together, Labor, the Greens and the Teals won just 47.9 per cent of first preference votes. Between them, the Libs, the Nats, One Nation, the Palmer party and a miscellany of rightist parties (such as the Lib-Dems, Katter and Shooters and Fishers) also won 47.9 per cent of the primary vote. Why would the Liberals (let alone the Nationals) think that they had to move substantially to the left after an election which was pretty much a tie?

   It was never going to be easy for the Morrison government to win. What made defeat almost inevitable was the total absence of a fourth term agenda, other than “superannuation for housing”, a worthy policy but released far too late in the campaign to make much difference.

   Add in Scott Morrison’s manifest unpopularity right across the country and we’ve ended up with a new PM that seven out of 10 Australians didn’t vote for. So it makes no sense whatsoever for a political movement that’s just been defeated because it had little product differentiation from its opponents to then decide to have even less.

   As a former assistant treasurer in the Howard government, and more recently border protection and defence Minister, Peter Dutton is ideally placed to restore the Coalition as the best party to manage the economy and national security.

   And make no mistake, these are going to be front and centre over the next few years. The Ukraine war is not going to end anytime soon and could easily produce a new iron curtain in Europe.

   China’s communist government remains bent on taking democratic Taiwan, with incalculable consequences for the global order that’s made the modern world more safe, more free and more prosperous than ever before. And by corrupting the weak governments of the Pacific, Beijing’s tentacles now stretch almost to our own borders.

   Then there’s inflation, already at 5 per cent and certain to go higher, with inevitable interest rate pain; plus galloping cost increases, led by power prices that are going up almost 20 per cent on 1 July and are likely to go much higher still, thanks to climate policies and energy market disruption.

   Plus the fact that governments won’t be able to scratch every electoral itch with more spending thanks to free money from the Reserve Bank.

   Dutton is unlikely to fall for Labor’s demands that the Coalition accept the new government’s (non-existent) “mandate” for higher emissions targets and to legislate net zero. Almost certainly, he’ll keep faith with Coalition voters who expect the MPs they’ve just elected to honour their own commitments to the electorate: not to put cutting emissions before saving jobs and not to try to bind the hands of future governments and parliaments.

   The last thing that Liberal Party (and the Coalition as a whole) needs is an essentially theological debate over whether to be more “progressive” or more “conservative”.  

   The so-called “moderates” like to quote Menzies’ post-retirement statement that he’d intended to create a “progressive” party, ignoring his other statement (in a letter to his daughter) deploring “ ‘small-l’ Liberals who believe in nothing” as he voted DLP instead of for the party he founded.

   At its strongest, the party has always been both small-l liberal and small-c conservative, depending on the issue and the circumstances. By far the best course is to maintain Menzies’ concerns for today’s version of the “forgotten people” – the voters he hoped to represent that weren’t to be found, he said “in the “fashionable suburbs”.

   They’re far more likely to be worrying about cost-of-living pressures in Penrith and Chadstone than obsessing over emissions in Vaucluse or Toorak.

   The job of opposition is not to improve bad legislation or to find common ground with your opponents. It’s to present a clear alternative and make the case for it in the community. It’s to prepare candidates capable of representing an electorate without forfeiting their values. That will be a lot harder for the Coalition if the National Party decides to transition into the party of Palm Beach and Byron Bay.

   The Nationals have always prided themselves on having a character all of their own, distinct from that of their Coalition partner. Instead of trying to turn themselves into rural Teals, the Nats should tell the woke types in the inner city to get real.
2. Ed Case says:

   30 May, 2022 at 4:56 am

   Together, Labor, the Greens and the Teals won just 47.9 per cent of first preference votes.

   So what?
   Labor is a Right Wing Party, The Greens are quite a bit further Right than that, only the Teals are from the Left.

   Between them, the Libs, the Nats, One Nation, the Palmer party and a miscellany of rightist parties (such as the Lib-Dems, Katter and Shooters and Fishers) also won 47.9 per cent of the primary vote.

   Again, so what?
   The Liberals are a Party of the Left, so are the Agrarian Socialist Nats, and that’s it.
   What One Nation, Palmer and SFF stand for, who knows, but they’re appealing to Right Wing voters, so let’s call them Rightists.
   Which means the Right actually did quite well.
   Will a sharp swing to the Right help the Liberals?
   Well, it didn’t do them much good in the Teal Seats, and they lost a couple of senators too.
   Bottom line:
   Over the 78 years since the Liberal Party was formed, it’s been the senior Party in Coalition Government 51 years.
   The Previous Non Labor Parties, the Nationalists and the UAP, fell over because they were chasing Labor Voters.
   So far, the Liberal Party has avoided that trap.
3. Petros says:

   30 May, 2022 at 4:57 am

   Credlin is right as usual. Canavan is in peak form. The Nats need to split from the Libs in Queensland and start running their own candidates even where there’s a Liberal candidate.
4. Ed Case says:

   30 May, 2022 at 5:39 am

   That’s nuts.
   The LNP holds 21 of the 30 Seats in Qld, Canavan’s intervention in the Campaign wasn’t welcomed by his mates trying to hold on to their seats, but the Labor Party reckon he’d make a great leader [of the National Party].
5. Entropy says:

   30 May, 2022 at 7:52 am

   Littleproud should not be the alternative. A retail political of the worst kind, without charisma. As minister the answer to every solution was to throw taxpayer money about with no regard for policy. Or justice.
   $300,000 (even $400,000) grants to landed gentry paid for by taxpayers who are lucky to earn $50,000 in a year.
6. Boambee John says:

   30 May, 2022 at 8:24 am

   Dickless

   Not sure what you’re smoking, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t legal.
7. C.L. says:

   30 May, 2022 at 10:01 am

   The Nats’ diehard supporters didn’t abandon Joyce over his net zero capitulation only because they believed he wasn’t being serious when he sold them out. Not exactly a flattering basis for his authority.
8. Not Trampis says:

   30 May, 2022 at 10:17 am

   Credlin was shown up as a bullying and incompetent chief of staff who learnt nothing.

   the 2PP vote has always determined who wins government. just ask the Teals who helped them win.
   Joyce and Canavan were to this campaign that brown was to the last. Before this campaign the LNP held all the seats where people held post graduate degrees. They now hold only one and it is no longer a safe seat.
   If the LNP want to be in government again then Joyce cannot be Leader.
   If Albo can change then I can’t see why Dutton cannot although history seems to indicate he won’t be PM when they win government back.
9. C.L. says:

   30 May, 2022 at 10:36 am

   70 per cent of Australians didn’t want Albanese as prime minister.
10. C.L. says:

    30 May, 2022 at 10:43 am

    Dutton made a gratuitous drive-by mention of Tony Abbot while telling Ray Hadley he believed in God but didn’t ever attend church.

    There is also background chatter doing the rounds that he’s quite cuddly about the Voice.

    He is also being sandbagged by the neo-con loonies of News Corp who want him to keep raving on about war with China and Russia – which probably scared away ten thousand voters on election day.
11. C.L. says:

    30 May, 2022 at 10:45 am

    Before this campaign the LNP held all the seats where people held post graduate degrees. They now hold only one and it is no longer a safe seat.

    This is such a 1970s observation.
    Plumbers earn a lot more than women’s studies PhDs.
12. Not Trampis says:

    30 May, 2022 at 11:53 am

    CL, no-one votes for a PM except those on the ALP or Liberal party depending who wins an election.
    Actually pols showed albo was even steven with Morrison so you are not even accurate there.

    no party wins government on the primary vote.

    Who said anything about income or womens studies degrees. The LNP will never win another election if it does not try to win the teal seats again. They were SAFE seats.

    Lets face it the deplorable vote in Australia is very low. If you are going to vote for an idiot vote for Lambie at least she has no Svengali behind like hanson has.
13. Boambee John says:

    30 May, 2022 at 12:06 pm

    Non Mentis

    Before this campaign the LNP held all the seats where people held post graduate degrees.

    Are you seriously saying that there was not a single post-graduate living in any seat in Australia that was not held by the LNP? Evidence?
14. Boambee John says:

    30 May, 2022 at 12:08 pm

    Non Mentis

    The LNP will never win another election if it does not try to win the teal seats again. They were SAFE seats.

    So safe that Phelps managed to win (albeit not hold) Wentworth a few years ago.And then there is Warringah.

    What are you smoking?
15. Not Trampis says:

    30 May, 2022 at 1:14 pm

    Phelps did not campaign on climate change per se.
    She was not sating a vote for Sharma was a votes for jones.

    you really are a superficial deplorable but that is a tautology.

    The climate wars is over. If the Liberals realise that then those safe seats will come back to them. if they do not they won’t.

    We will need a change of government two elections from now so the LNP need to change at least jones is gone. good.

    JC wil be sad. He does like overweight morons as politicians.
16. Boambee John says:

    30 May, 2022 at 1:28 pm

    Non Mentis

    Phelps did not campaign on climate change per se.

    So she won a SAFE seat, without campaigning on the issue that you seem to believe led to the loss of the SAFE seat this time? You seem to have a very loose definition of “SAFE”.

    She was not sating a vote for Sharma was a votes for jones.

    Can this be translated into English?

    The climate wars is over.

    More semi-literacy, but at least this bit can be comprehended. Perhaps you might offer some evidence? For example, if the electricity grid collapses, will they/it re-start?

    You really are a mindless “progressive”, but that is a tautology.