As I mentioned in my last post, Turnbull’s narrow win has left us with a government standing for nothing but delaying various inevitable outcomes, including
* equal marriage;
* participation in global action on climate change; and, most notably
* Turnbull’s removal from office, whether by voters or, more likely, by his own colleagues.
The “economic plan” on which the government was supposedly elected consists of a single element, a cut in company taxes mostly deferred far enough beyond the forward estimates to dodge the question of how it will be paid for. In any case, it’s dead in the water, as, in all likelihood is the pretext for the double dissolution, the ABCC bill.
Turnbull’s lame duck status was made farcically clear by Cabinet’s non-decision on Kevin Rudd’s proposed nomination as UN Secretary General. The Right-dominated party didn’t even bother to overrule Julie Bishop (and, pretty obviously, Turnbull’s own inclination). Instead, they told Turnbull to make a “captain’s call”, while making it clear that the wrong call would be fatal.
If Turnbull had any self-respect left, he’d resign and let this crew sort out their own mess. Instead, he gets to hang on in office, at the price of being made a fool of on a daily basis.
John Quiggin 
My challenge to John Quiggin is this: after all these years, finally put up a comment starter that I can even remotely disagree with.
Perhaps I am just biased. To me, Turnbull is even worse than Abbott. He is an ice cold, back stabbing neo liberal.
Thanks John. Noted ! 🙂 John
Couldn’t agree more John. Self-respect – how can he even look at himself in a mirror. And now he’s fully exposed himself to public gaze, not able to hide behind Cabinet. This must be a blow to those people, and I’m sure there are a number, who keep thinking that Turnbull will pull off his ugly sister mask and turn out to be Cinderella. And this immediately on top of his appointing a racist judge with close links to the NT government to the job of Royal Commissioner into children’s detention in the NT, in the face of expressed dismay of indigenous people. The whole thing beggars belief.
I don’t see it. The point is that he is Prime Minister. PRIME MINISTER. Malcolm Turnbull, Prime Minister of Australia. If you think of some pubescent schoolgirl using a glitter pen to write “Mrs Myname Boyband Heartthrob” on her schoolbooks, I think you have an accurate view of how Malcolm sees the current situation.
At the point where he compromised everything to replace Tony Abbott, it became clear that he’s less interested in power and more interested in being seen as Prime Minister. He’s got the title, that’s what matters. The fact that his “legacy” will be the cementing in place of Abbotts initiatives and likely a few disasters all his own (appointing that particular Royal Commissioner seems likely to be the first for this sitting)
I gather Scott Morrison is the likely replacement for Malcolm Turnbull, with Peter Dutton angling for the Deputy role. If we thought Tony Abbott was a wrecker I expect that pair would make him look good.
Ah, but there is your mistake, J.Q. I mean the assumption that Turnbull has any self-respect. Solipsistic narcissism is not self-respect. Self-respect requires other-respect and Turnbull displays none of that.
So far as being a do-nothing government goes, this is now the neoliberal managerialist method par excellence. Once the gravy train is rattling along nicely with the silvertails in the dining car then there IS nothing else to do but let the good times roll… for them.
He is now owned by Arthur Sinodinos.
C’mon, ProfQ, in the election campaign Turnbull promised to make protecting the role of CFA volunteers in Victoria the “first item of business” if the Coalition was re-elected. And I think JulieB went along with that too.
So surely we’re about to see a flurry of activity to achieve that objective ?
But if Ikono’s description of Turnbull as a “solipsistic narcissist” is correct, then what meaning does “respect” have for a solipsist ? And therefore what meaning can the idea of “self respect” have for Turnbull ?
Moz above is on the money. For most of his life MT has thought he was destined for great things, and now he has the top job, I suspect he’ll do anything t keep it.
re Malcolm and the Coalition government abuse of institutions and a few comments.
ABCC emergency -We had the “100 CFMEU officials before the Courts” but no names were produced – same with the 1000S of charges. We had the hyena Cash and the FWBC boss misleading a Senate Committee with these “non-facts”.
We had the dismantling of the RTST where apparently private driver/owners wished to have a judicially-sanctioned minimum rate for their transport established – come on !
We had the CFA [non]crisis in Vic. identified by Malcolm during the election though being substantially a state matter and then before the FWC. This apparently affected results in at least the 2 seats of Corangamite and Chisolm there. A Liberal Party group was set up to create community disharmony. There were inconsistent swings against the general Victorian trend to Labor especially in “bush booths”.
This coalition pattern of perverting societal institutions eg. as per Slipper[Courts] and Thomson [HSU with Jackson and Lawler of FWA] apparently has been taken up by Malcolm. Perhaps in a government with a majority of 1, one of these simmering scandals will bring down at least one member and thereby the government.
We should not forget the “Utegate” affair also.
Remember our own Pauline was set up by Abbott against whom there is overwhelming evidence of his providing false evidence to the AEC concerning the donors to his association set up to “get” Pauline. She still claims this was the genesis of her unjust jail time when she helped Valmae Beck ! Lets hope she feels a “woman scorned” and lets fly in the Senate – she is advised apparently by Slipper’s former loyal staffer Ashby. Abbott is only a member whose conviction could bring the government down if convicted under the Criminal Code.
The AFP’s dilatoriness is another issue perhaps for later RC.
I can see why he’d sell his soul to get the top job, but now that he’s proved he can get there, why hang on. To use Moz’ analogy, isn’t the fangirl’s dream all about the wedding?
July 30 at 8.08 am. Sorry in para. 2 I meant not “established” BUT removed.
Turnbull was a dud at ute-gate but the moment he should have been finally cast out was when he white-anted the NBN. I know you’ve not been interested in the NBN John but this is a vital infrastructure project that was being built by experts, was going to be a river of gold for the government and would have boosted the economy in so many ways. This issue was not a he-said she-said type. (although the Murdoch media tried to paint it so) (and the ABC were prevented from reporting) This was an issue where there was 100% binary certainty that a full fibre rollout was the only way to proceed. Turnbull has utterly stuffed the NBN now. There is no return. It’s f*cked.
Turnbull love has always amazed me. Where did it come from. Love of the rich? The private school accent? Pheromones? He is, in the vernacular, a c*nt.
For all their faults Senators such as Pauline Hanson and Jacquie Lambie appear to have far more gumption than our vapid PM. The Rudd issue is the icing on his lighter than air sponge cake.
These are amusing speculations on M.T.’s character and motivations, and I have chipped in, but I will again ask the more fundamental question. Is the personality politics game one that will really shed any light on the important issues of politics and economics? Let me illustrate my point.
I watched a bit of the Drum on the ABC the other day. It was, as usual, completely facile being concerned only with personality politics. Hillary and Donald were being discussed. In passing, someone mentioned that there had been no real wages growth in the USA for 40 years and none in Australia for 5 years, IIRC. This sounds about right to me but I would have to go and fact check to make sure precisely. However, this fact or alleged fact immediately sank without trace in the discussion. Even the person who brought it up let it sink.
Today, we don’t appear to want to think about the tough stuff any more or about underlying reasons for things. Nobody on the show asked questions like this. “Well, why don’t we get wages growth anymore? Why are profits growing but not wages? Is this fair? What will happen if this trend continues indefinitely? Can we do anything about it? Can Hillary or Donald do anything about it? Will Hillary or Donald do anything about it? Has either of Hillary or Donald ever made a statement recognising this and outlining what they intend to do about it? If not, are Hillary and Donald any different when it comes to questions like poverty, inequality, unemployment and helping the working poor? Why do we get no fundamental policy changes effecting positive changes on these issues even when we change governments?”
David Allen,
You are certainly right about that.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/questnews/logan/residents-call-for-faster-nbn-rollout-as-they-battle-internet-speeds-slower-than-third-world-countries/news-story/99fb8b48ed9f7fdad07cf5a384b8bef5
@Ikonoclast It’s non leaders like Turnbull that turn voters towards extremes such as Brexit and Trump. For all her perceived errors Hillary Clinton has taken notice of Bernie Sanders and has adopted some of his proposals, how they will be converted into policy remains to be seen.
By comparison Turnbull seems to be a dead man walking.
Just a cut in the corporate tax rate? “Starving the beast” has always been the Liberal’s number one goal. Everything is about cutting taxes, the rest is just a sideshow. Viewed through this lens and all of what appear to be stupid policies suddenly make perfect sense. Hockey’s first budget being the most obvious example.
I agree with Ikonoclast regarding too much emphasis being placed on personalities (and celebrities) in the media. There is also too much emphasis for my liking on who will win and too many guesses as to the strategies of the players.
From my perspective, the Coalition doesn’t have the ‘core property’ (see game theory) in the policy area. (The ALP didn’t have it during the Rudd-Gillard era.)
On the corporate tax rate policy, the Mr Turnbull once provided the following reasoning. Investment decisions are made at time t (say now) on the basis of future expected after tax returns. (This is Finance, taught by accountants.) Large investments (by large corporations) will take the future tax cuts into account (because it enters NPV calculations as taught by accountants). So far so good as far as corporate finance (as taught by accountants) is concerned. But Turnbull, possibly inadvertently, gave a perfect counterargument by noting that future governments can change these policies. Finance people call this an element of ‘country risk’.
There are multiple interpretations of Turnbull’s statements. One of them is, it is an atempt to attract foreign investors on dubious grounds. Another one is, any multinational properly schooled in corporate finance would seek some other assurances (say via state governments) that the foreshadowed tax rate cuts will be cashed in via some contract. Etc, etc.
It is not good policy. Full stop.
@rog
Well, you see, I do not buy into this particular “leadership” myth of contemporary society. Once again, that is part of personality politics and the cult of personality. The “leadership” myth of contemporary society holds that only a special few, the “leaders”, can actually come up with new, better ideas and lead. This myth holds that the entirety of the people do not have, even in the aggregate as a community with combined, distributed intelligence, the competence and foresight of a single, elite-skilled leader. I just don’t buy that myth. Wide ranges of individual competence and intelligence certainly do exist. But the idea that one “leader” can lead better than the complete distributed intelligence, of which he/she is inescapably a part, has a number of problems attached to it.
Of course, the realisation, harnessing and “cooperativeising” of group intelligence also has many problems. Therein lies the whole dilemma of political direction in terms of mass will versus executive command. I should either write very little or very much on this topic. I better stick with very little in this thread. Suffice it to say, we need to look at coalescing around agreed leading principles much more than around selected leading humans. That’s what we do for example when we value democracy over Malcolm Turnbull. It’s a mode of thinking we need to make much more explicit in our political theory and practice than it currently is. Heavens, I wish we could rise above mere personality politics and the cult of personality in general. Of course, this system loves personality politics. It is a great smokescreen for hiding what the real power relations are.
Having reading glasses doesn’t seem to eliminate my typos. Attempt (rather than atempt), the ‘the’ in front of Mr Turnbull is a mistake, too. Sorry.
@Ernestine Gross
“Core property”. This is another one of those concepts I am not equipped to understand because of my lack of education in such a field.
From what I see on Wikipedia, there is “the core” in general equilibrium theory (which I can’t grasp at all) and then there is “the core” in voting theory. I’ll make a wild guess and assume you mean the latter in this case.
“When alternatives are allocations (list of consumption bundles), it is natural to assume that any nonempty subsets of individuals can block a given allocation. When alternatives are public (such as the amount of a certain public good), however, it is more appropriate to assume that only the coalitions that are large enough can block a given alternative. The collection of such large (“winning”) coalitions is called a simple game. The core of a simple game with respect to a profile of preferences is based on the idea that only winning coalitions can reject an alternative “x” in favor of another alternative “y”. A necessary and sufficient condition for the core to be nonempty for all profile of preferences, is provided in terms of the Nakamura number for the simple game.” – Wikipedia.
I assume from context and hints that you mean Rudd-Gillard did not control the Senate and neither does Turnbull. Is this right?
I suspect Turnbull is also now wondering what he’s supposed to do. Ideally he’d step down gracefully without seeming to be pushed, then live happily ever after. The trick is to do just enough now to endear himself to the granters of knighthoods later. The tax cut seems to be his chosen vehicle – it’ll kick in just at the right time.
Not that I am accusing him of having any grand strategy, it’s clear now that his forte is tactics. If he had strategic nous he’d … oooh, wait. The day parliament resumes, Labour will be presenting their two-same-sex-people marriage bill, and that is when the hammer will fall. Malcolm will declare “the Liberals do not whip”, leading a band of liberal Liberals across the floor in support. The bigot Liberals will lose what remains of their grip and the foaming tirades that result will finally turn the nation against them. Victory #2 for the “Doctor’s Wives” club!
There is a neat, almost Haiku-like poem by Emily Dickinson which we could imagine being addressed by any obscure citizen to Malcolm Turnbull.
“I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!
How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!”
@David Allen
I actually am interested in the NBN. I just don’t get time to write about everything that interests me very often, but I had my say a few years ago
https://johnquiggin.com/2013/08/22/nbn-we-would-have-been-better-off-without-privatisation/
@Moz of Yarramulla
If only!
@Ernestine Gross
Oh yeah, EG, tell me about it [sigh <- umm, that's me sighing for me in case there's any confusion, but also expressing kindred empathy for you.]
@Ikonoclast
Re your #15.
I don’t want to enter into the ‘personality politics’ game, Ikono, but Turnbull, at least to the best of my ability to discern, is human, and humans, so I’m reliably told, have ‘personalities’. Frankly I think that humans are just conditioned rule processing machines: abstracting “rules” from their worldly interactions and then incorporating the result into their conditioning. Yeah, I know that’s just old fashioned B F Skinner and all the world is a big sand pit, but he really could train animals well. And very quickly.
Anyway, to revert to the idea of ‘personalities’, then Turnbull has one and I confess to being just a little bit interested in delineating it. So:
I appreciate your solipsistic narcissist judgment, and it isn’t all that different from my own first take – but then I didn’t update from DSM IVR to DSM V so I don’t know if solipsism is included in the mental model pantheon yet (but if not, it should be).
However, I was tempted to reminisce about the Great Triumvirate: Freud, Jung and Adler. Frankly I never cared much for Freud or Jung, but Adler interested me. He had this thing about ‘feelings’ and ‘complexes’ as though human beings actually had some kind of operational consciousness (which is why he repudiated Freud). So, kinda ‘quoting’ Adler, we could say that Turnbull has “massive superiority feelings to compensate for an underlying inferiority complex”. The inferiority complex coming from his ‘poor boy’ childhood together with some kind of passive (or active) rejection by his more affluent private school ‘mates’. And his later, working-life ‘mates’ too.
Don’t you, at heart, agree ?
On the other hand, you might just think we’re acting like foolish Eloi while the Morlocks gather all around us.
And since we are kinda covering the multiple failings of Turnbull, there’s one that hasn’t been mentioned so far but which I find to be very significant: Turnbull’s behavior towards Brendan Nelson when Nelson was Libs leader, viz, calling Brendan or bursting into his office to harangue him on all the myriad things Turnbull was sure Nelson was getting and/or doing wrong. Strangely, there’s no stories I’ve seen that indicate he did it to Abbott … I wonder why ?
But how’s that for evidence of massive “superiority feelings” vis-à-vis Nelson and an underlying “inferiority complex” vis-à-vis Abbott. Or something.
@Ikonoclast
Your #24
Well yeah, Ikono, a nice choice of poet and poem. But how about William Hughes Mearns and at least the first verse of Antigonish:
Yesterday upon the stair
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away.
@Historyintime
But I understand that Arthur was one of those who backed Rudd’s nomination.
@Ikonoclast
Re your #20
Now there’s more than one possible take on this leadership thing, Ikono. Let me introduce you to a decision theory approach that may put things in better context. Quite a few years ago, I became something of a fan of a gentleman called Andreas Faludi and his most excellent book ‘Planning Theory’ Faludi was indeed an urban and regional planner, and apart from having the most usefully accurate analysis of various planning approaches and methodologies, he had some remarks to make about decisions.
Faludi broke decisions into two aspects: decision ‘making’ and decision ‘taking’. The ‘making’ side of it, Faludi insisted, was the domain of specialists (those who understood both the theory of planning, and theory in planning). The makers takes the issue/problem/ whatever and work out a clear statement of objectives, an analysis of the ‘action space’ (ie all the things you can and can’t do legally or fiscally), a clear statement of both the restraints and the constraints and their impact on the action space and hence arrive at a problem solution and a design for action based on their technical expertise
So far, so good. But now comes the ‘leadership’ bit: any action plan needs resources (fiscal, personnel etc) and it needs to be proposed and pushed, all the risks and rewards accepted and promoted and when the plan is accepted, it must be continually protected from the meddling of those who oppose it and the death wishes of those who support it. This, Faludi calls ‘decision taking’.
So, Ikono, unless a Prime Minister is a very, very accomplished person (like Rudd may have been and Turnbull thinks himself to be), there is a clear division of responsibility – and a very clear role for the ‘taker’.
@Ikonoclast It’s not a myth, people everywhere are looking for a strong competent leader. To deny this is to deny evolution.
@rog
From the way you express it, it seems like this is a self-evident truth to you. But invoking “evolution” and applying it inappropriately in such contexts can lead on to Social Darwinist thinking.
While it might be clear enough what “strong” leadership means in animal groups like wolf packs (alpha animal dominance as sheer fighting ability) it becomes an ever more complicated thing for complex modern human societies. The physical strength requirement is gone. Intelligence and cunning no doubt remain as requirements. However, a good argument can be made that the “strong” leaders our system now throws up are the most adept liars, the strongest liars. Their competence claims are clearly fake. Look at the lies and idiotic incompetence of Bush, Blair, Howard, Abbott and Turnbull to name a few. So we have to ask ourselves why our system is maladaptively throwing up such poor leaders and whether our infantile and archaic need for single “strong” leaders needs to be reappraised and our model moved to more collective decision making.
@Moz of Yarramulla
I would argue, in fact, that Turnbull is absolutely shite at tactics as well. The Double Dissolution was a failure on both a tactical and a strategic level, he showed himself to be terrible at tactics in the UteGate affair, and he was strategically humiliated in the Republican Referendum. He strikes me as more of a garden-variety hollow man; he projects the image that he knows what he is doing, but fails miserably every time he actually has to do anything.
My evidence includes the entirety of his Prime Ministership, his failed NBN as Communications Minister, his original stint at the Liberal Paty leadership in 2009, the Republican Referendum and its preceding Constitutional Convention, and his entire business career, which is only seen as successful because OzeMail was purchased for a grossly inflated sum. Even his legal career, which launched his stardom, was not great; several of my law student friends described the Spycatcher case as “virtually impossible to lose.”
Basically, Turnbull is a less crazy, more progressive, and not-orange Donald Trump. He’s the respectable con-man, not the sleazy one.
@David Allen
I used to admire Turnbull because when a journalist asked him a question, he just seemed to try to answer it – like anyone would!
but now I agree with Keating – he has no political sense. His utterances now sound like a corporate pep talk.
Let me make a prediction. Malcolm Turnbull will announce he is standing down as Prime Minister in 2018 in the year he will turn 64, on the grounds that he could not commit to serving a full term after the 2019 election given his age, so therefore it was best that he stood down in 2018 and let a younger person take the reins going into the election.
Scott Morrison would then take over.
I suspect the deal has already been done, and it may even be in writing.
And the humiliation of Turnbull over Rudd is just Morrison (with cheerleading from the Nationals) rubbing it in.
Let me also note that the Expenditure Review Committee (ERC) is currently Turnbull, Morrison, Cormann, O’Dwyer, Porter, Sinodinos and Joyce. The membership of the new ERC will be revealing. I suspect O’Dwyer will be dropped, and another National added – probably Fiona Nash. I think Sinodinos may even be dropped and Frydenberg added instead.
Regardless, the new ERC will be absolutely dominated by the conservatives.
@John Goss
Which raises the question of why Turnbull wanted the job in the first place. (Here’s me speculating in the personality politics vein). Did Malcolm just want his photo on Prime Ministers’ Row? Did he think he could actually achieve anything? Was he selflessly saving us from Tony? (Just kidding.) Perhaps he thought he could get a good majority and win the Senate in the last election. In which case his legislative program was… er um… what was his legislative program?
@rog
“To deny this is to deny evolution.”.
For most of human history, we lived in egalitarian bands. Even when big men emerged, everything had to be done through negotiation (or the big man was quickly toppled). This is pretty uncontroversial among ancient archeologists. *The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire* is a non-technical overview.
Probably true and nicely satirised by Life of Brian in the “he’s not the messiah he’s a very naughty boy” scene.
The trouble is the viability of a ‘strong competent leader” has been undermined by the evolution of human society. To illustrate:
– To understand complex issues ministers rely on a one page ministerial and the in fact senior business managers rely on even less. In the oversimplification of the eight second sound bite prevents senior politicians from really understanding issues beyond the superficial/sound bite level except where the issue is one of their pet hobbies personal interests or obsessions.
– Malcolm being a lawyer has had to master this stuff for the purposes of advocacy and he appears to be good at it. However man’s got to know his limitations and maybe this is why Trump is currently successful. He knows his limitations so he doesnt even try. Malcolm on the other hand is still trying but like Gillard and Rudd he is out of his depth.
– In times past the world was simpler for the West at least as there was a simple left right split framework that drove our thinking and simplified things. China Islam Finance etc. were not so much out of control and so were secondary externalities. And a leader’s decision options and choices were usually pretty obvious.
– And people were getting wealthier on average so discontent was constrained and a leader could claim responsibility even though their contribution might be marginal.
Thus we are now faced perhaps with the inviability of the strong competent leader model and Turnbull being a victim of this change just as Menzies was beneficiary.
@Vegetarian
Not too sure about Turnbull trying to answer journalists questions – my memory of a younger Turnbull was someone very eager to threaten litigation if he didn’t like the tone of questioning.
@rog
Touching you think there is any doubt here.
The problem with the notion of “leader” and with the appellations “strong” and “competent” in connection with “leader” is that the definitions of these qualities are all in the mind of the one making the definitions.
Thus a “leader” is someone heading in the direction that I want to go. Someone heading in a direction I don’t want to go is not my leader. The difference between a leader (one I will actually follow) and me might be one of strength or competence or persuasiveness. The difference could alternatively be that the leader and I, although both wanting to go the same way, and having generally comparable qualities, have yet made different assessments of the rewards and risks of leading and the rewards and risks of following.
“Leaders” and “followers” don’t exist except in relation to each other. There is a dynamic at work. We should always remember Tolstoy’s ship analogy. Is the foam bow-wave that froths ahead of the ship leading the ship in terms of actually steering it? Of course not. Likewise much modern political and diplomatic activity is just froth ahead of where the great material-political ship is heading in any case. Are “leaders” those who figure out, or guess, where the trends are going and then run ahead to appear to be leading?
What is a “strong” leader? One who drone strikes weak and innocent women and children half a world away? One who tells the people only what they want to hear? “Don’t let anyone tell you we are not the greatest nation on earth.” Or is a leader one who tells people truths about themselves and their world that they don’t want hear? Like a Jeremiah perhaps. Self-insight is rarely pleasant. In the modern context a truth-teller will never get elected. Those who repeat the myths and shibboleths of modern hubris (a mix of religious, ideological and scientistic-humanist fundamentalisms) will get elected. Yet the truly strong person would stand up, tell the unpleasant truths and then immediately be ostracised and politically destroyed; at least in our current system which functions on its myriad myths and lies.
Note: I deliberately used “scientistic-humanist” rather than “scientific-humanist”.
@Ikonoclast
By “strong” I don’t mean big teeth and big muscles I mean the ability to gain and hold the support of the group; group could be family, tribe or nation.
At one point Turnbull had the support of the nation but appears to be unable to hold it.
@rog
“By strong… I mean the ability to gain and hold the support of the group; group could be family, tribe or nation.
I am so tempted to type at this point what would simply be a proof of Godwin’s Law.
Must… resist… temptation. 🙂
But he won the election but everyone expected the Liberals to lose 9 months ago. Labour is still labouring under the misapprehension that they did not lose the last election. They did. They were slaughtered in South Australia by NXT. 42% of one nation voters are labour.
Malcolm Turnbull and self-respect have never met.
How anyone ever thought that a man who learnt his business ethics at the feet of Kerry Packer could ever amount to anything and was suitable to be PM of this country is beyond me. He only supported a republic and climate change because they were trendy issues he saw as a launch-pad for his own ambition. Both bit him on the arse and he dropped them. Truly, one of the great con-men of Australian political history.
@Ikonoclast
Turnbull only wanted to be Prime Minister so that he could be Prime Minister. It was the big box on his bucket list. His massive sense of entitlement told him he deserved to be PM and he has achieved that goal. He has no shame. He has no dignity. He has NOTHING inside. So he will sit on top of the dung-hill, crowing away, until Sco-Mo knocks him off.
@FREDDO
“Truly, one of the great con-men of Australian political history.”
Maybe… but there sure as heck is a lot of competition for that title. 🙂