Liberal leadership: round two

Brendan Nelson has thrown the Liberal leadership open to a party room vote tomorrow morning. A source quoted by the ABC calls the move a “suicide mission” and “predicts Malcolm Turnbull has the numbers to take the leadership”. Nelson defeated Turnbull in the first round five days after the November 24 election by 45 votes to 42.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

520 comments on “Liberal leadership: round two”

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  2. Fredn at 139

    It’s because of Nelson’s habit of Emoting.

    “… a family in a tarago with 5 kids in the back, with a wheel chair in the back (sniff – a tear develops)… for the love of god, they have to eat processed sausages because they can no longer afford real meat! And it’s Kevin Rudd’s fault”

    That kind of thing.

  4. fredn @ 139. Emo refers to a particularly overly emotive style of popular songs, characterised by people wearing not only their hearts on their sleeves, but all over themselves. It’s been applied to Brendon due to his overly emotive style as applied to newly discovered people, e.g. the sole aged pensioners (as opposed to the last 11 or so years) who need urgent help, and bugger the financial consequences, as the opposition don’t care to address these needless details.

  6. From the ABC story:

    The Liberal Party’s Senate leader Nick Minchin left the meeting praising Dr Nelson.

    “I think he’s done an outstanding job in the nine months he has been our leader and I hope that he’s re-elected tomorrow morning,” he said.

    So if Turnbull gets up that is a serious slap to Minchin.

  7. The right move by Nelson. No point in delaying the inevitable, if he can’t survive tomorrow, with Costello now gone, and Turnbull not quite ready, he probably never would.

  9. Thanks, emo as in emotive, got it.

    Another thing I have been wondering, why does one Liberal party supporter use Robert Menzies as his avatar, and the other the US republican logo? Seems very; whats the right way to put this; over the top.

  11. Grog @ 156,

    Minchin needs to be taken down a peg or two 😉 ……. He’s right up there with Cossie in the arrogance department imho

  13. Agreed juliem.

    From The Age:
    “ABC TV reported that Dr Nelson planned a “clean out” of his frontbench if he retained the leadership.”

    oh excellent; the Liberal Party to a T: In defeat malice; in victory revenge.

  16. Even if he loses the leadership, Nelson has done the right thing. If he was destined to lose the job, it would be pointless continuing on when he clearly lacked the support of his party and of the public.

    Hear Hear

  17. As a Liberal voter, I’ve never had much time for Nelson. And as Leader he’s been fairly useless – sure it’s hard times for the Libs, but boy, has he made some unforced errors!

    I’ll give Nelson kudos for two things though:

    1. Having the guts to give the leadership a go.

    2. Dealing with the leadership speculation in a way that seems to have the interests of the Party in mind.

    Still, Malcolm has to be the least bad option the Party has right now. He won’t win the next election, but he’ll be more competitive than anyone else I can think of (if he lasts that long).

  18. “oh excellent; the Liberal Party to a T: In defeat malice; in victory revenge.”

    Ah, that’s not only the Liberal Party, Grog. Or are you saying that Reba Meagher’s resignation was prompted by pure motives?

  20. GP @ 143. I do wish you’d actually think about what I posted back to you. Let me re-phrase. I said on balance, I thought (it’s my opinion) that on balance, the worst that the Coalition, specifically the LNP had delivered in gov’t. out-weighed the good they had done. On the good side, I would put the gun buy back, the continued support for national mental health reform (though I wish they’d put money into a very effective public sector, rather than line the pockets of half-assed general practitioners and others who will simply rort the system), the GST, which took guts, apart from that, hard to think of anything really. Bit like the W.A. thing about asking whether anyone could think of anything good the Labor gov’t. had done there. Tricky stuff for gov’t. at any level. On the down side for me, the negatives are so numerous, so divisive of our polity, that I won’t start.
    Suffice to say, dismiss me and my ilk, if you wish to do so; wear the consequences.

  25. No 170

    The thing is Harry, Mr Howard (our greatest PM) had the courage of his convictions to take controversial policy to elections and risk his political future. He succeeded on the GST and failed on Workchoices.

    The days of those politicians are over in my view.

  26. Muskiemp,
    Howard was on his second go though, when he eventually won.

    Turnbull hasn’t got 13 years, he’s about 53 or 54 I think. He’ll have one good shot at it, and if he fails, he’ll go and make some more money.

  28. I think there is a real division between the small l liberals and the conservatives. The broad church has been destroyed and the party it can no longer appeal to both. I think Turnbull will do a great job but Minchin will make sure he doesn’t last.

  29. No 174

    The Business Council is up in arms with the policy. Wong has no idea what she’s doing. Garrett is a useless rockstar. Garnaut has done an about face given the political difficulty. And so on.

    When people have to start paying massively more for energy (which has flow-on effects for food prices and so forth), I doubt they’ll see Rudd in the same light.

  30. Speaking as a Labor hack, I think Turnbull is the most formidable Opp Leader the Libs can come up with right now, and if we really are heading for a major economic crash, he might well have better prospects in 2010 than seemed possible last November. But he also has huge vulnerabilities. He can easily be portrayed as an arrogant, pompous millionaire banker – since that’s what he is.

  31. just saw a clip of Nelson during QT doing him baked beans thing. Julie Bishop behind him looked particularly unimpressed (as did Hockey). I’m thinking they’ve deserted him.

  32. Grog @ 163,

    From your quote – “From The Age:
    “ABC TV reported that Dr Nelson planned a “clean out” of his frontbench if he retained the leadership.”” …. that implies that Julie Bishop will go no matter what [don’t seriously believe for one second that Turnbull would keep her onboard] LOL ……. Oh boy this gets better and better, if that happens would serve her right for sticking her nose into the politics of the state election. 😉

  33. GP

    [Mr Howard (our greatest PM) had the courage of his convictions to take controversial policy to elections and risk his political future. He succeeded on the GST and failed on Workchoices. ]

    The Liberals did NOT take Work”Choices” to the electorate until AFTER it was introduced. Very big difference.

    It was the Work”Choices” we got when we were given no “Choice” in the matter.

  34. No 180

    Mr Rudd has an equally large ego Adam, so I don’t particularly think the voters care all that much. After all, Ms Rein commands a $200 million fortune.

  35. Gutsy move by Nelson, While this appears a straightforward contest between Nelson and Turnbull I recall Costello saying he will do his best to stop Turnbull therefore I wouldn’t be too surprised if Costello throws his hat in the ring.

    With due respect to Tanya Costello, I don’t think the average voter cares that she remarked that Peter was a man of his word.

    The Interesting thing about this is for the last few weeks have been quite good for the Liberal Party with Rudd now facing serious questions over the cost of Carbon Trading and with the global economy situation looking gloomy Rudd needs to be every bit the fiscal conservative he promised to be.

    Based on the Republic debate I’m not a fan of Turnbulls campaign style for he came off as not knowing what he was talking about and somewhat lazy in debates, yes I acept that modal wasn’t his perferred one and being a leader allows you to create policies as you want to them to be.

  36. What a shame for Cossie!!! His big day’s gonna get spoiled by all the headlines over the Lib leadership. Cossie’s going to be absolutely fuming!!!

  38. He can easily be portrayed as an arrogant, pompous millionaire banker – since that’s what he is. (Adam)

    But that of course fails to take into account his childhood.

  39. No 183

    A difference, yes, but Howard could have had a transition to Costello and left on a high. He went right to the end. You can characterise the legislation however which way you dishonestly want, but Howard had courage.

  41. Adam,

    I basically agree with your assessment of Turnbull. The man has attractive centrist views on most key topics, and is articulate. Coupled with that is a gigantic ego and a bullying personality which leads him into unnecessary scrapes (classic example: carrying on that ridiculous stoush with Geoff Cousins during the election, a more seasoned operator like Howard would have rendered Cousins irrelevant by ignoring him). His colleagues will only tolerate him till as far off as 2010 if they think he has a chance of winning.

    Should be an interesting experiment, but I do think it will damage the Liberals less than another 6-12 months of the current leader would. Hats off to Brendan for trying, though.

  42. Yes GP, but curiously Rudd doesn’t LOOK like a millionaire, whereas Turnbull does. And yes Rudd is arrogant, but he’s not pompous in the way Turnbull is. The voters don’t seem to mind arrogance up to a point (Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, Keating, all very arrogant men), although Kennett showed that they have their limits, but I don’t think they like pomposity.

  43. Adam, you have a point about Turmbull being painted as a rich man but it is mostly self made and if he went with Robb as his deputy a man who is from Reservior.

    Maybe they should go with Robb from Reservoir and Billson from the Pines! how could the ALP call them toffs.

  44. [The Business Council is up in arms with the policy]

    So?

    [Wong has no idea what she’s doing]

    Rubbish

    [Garrett is a useless rockstar]

    He’s not really involved anyway

    [Garnaut has done an about face given the political difficulty]

    Last time I checked he was an advisor not a politician

    [When people have to start paying massively more for energy (which has flow-on effects for food prices and so forth), I doubt they’ll see Rudd in the same light.]

    The polls on the subject say otherwise

  46. GP @ 170. This is a gov’t. is in it’s first term, finding their feet . I realise there is a dream about that this gov’t. will be a one term wonder, and that is always a possibility, though not necessarily a probability. You do realise that the news out of the U.S. today about Lehman Bros. (spelling could be suspect) and Merrill Lynch could presage a total Big D type meltdown of possibly the global economy? You got any ideas about how any gov’t. might deal with this? Guts and conviction and ideas are going to be needed. My point is when critical events can be forseen or just happen, there is a need to operate across party lines, and we may well be approaching a nu,mber of such points, both economically and ecologically.

  48. [When people have to start paying massively more for energy (which has flow-on effects for food prices and so forth), I doubt they’ll see Rudd in the same light.]

    Oh OK, let’s do nothing then because it will be easier.

  49. No 187

    Fredn, what do we really know about the model that Rudd proposes? Nothing. We can all have in principle support for particular policies, but unless there is corresponding detail there is no way you give your support. Once it starts hitting their hip pockets, voter opinion may well change.

    I categorise carbon trading as similar to the republican debate. There was a swell of support but in the end no-one could enunciate a clear and proper model for the people to vote on.

    That will be Rudd’s test. I suspect he will fail. 🙂

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