Gordon Grech

'You two have a lot in common. You both are moderate, wealthy, and not very popular in your own parties but very popular among people…Many Labor voters are very disillusioned with the influence of the factions and unions. Many Liberal voters are disappointed with the influence of big business and the far right wing. Why don't you two join and establish a new party that can open a new chapter in politics in Australia?'

Yes and Turnbull's most enlightening and defining answer was

'Kevin and I could never agree on leadership.'

Stuff the policy, stuff the truth, stuff the people it's all about me and the leadership!

The turnbull style would see stable govt; for some time. As opposed to the Abbott far right, would in no time have the populace against him.
From one extreme to the other , is not what is needed, we need middle ground to move forward. If we had another choice of prospective govt; to choose from, this would no doubt rub on the two major players.
We have a definite risk of having another hung parliament, as happens overseas. I believe AU is looking for middle ground, and Turnbull would deliver that.
Howard had the right ideas until he went off the rails with ill thought out work related rules, being subject to big business is always going to be a coalitions downfall.

It wasn't that long ago that Malcolm Turnbull was portrayed as a mega rich, out of touch and wealthy elitist. Funny how things change.

Rudd and Turnbull combined could make a completely unelectable Party. Both are obsessed with their own popularity, neither is a team player and both have the unenviable ability to back losing ideas at critical times.

Mr Abbott may be a good bloke, a good father,
but once he enters the political arena his
ambition over-rides his ability to serve.
Not a good look for a politician.
Abbott can't help himself. As he told (or rather
begged - Tony Windsor) - he would do anything
to be PM short of sell his a*se. And his tactics
of bare knuckles and barred teeth don't impress
many voters.

Mr Turnbull keeps his ambition gloved, he's stuck
by his values, and spoken intelligently since
he lost the Liberal leadership by one vote. He
has genuine economic credentials and is respected
by the business community. He is not an embarrassment
or scary and is statesman-like enough to represent
us on a global scene. Still there's always
the swinging voters - our hope lies with them. Afterall
Mr Abbott is the least popular Opposition leader in the
history of this country and if the polls continue to
slide for him - perhaps a nervous party just may replace
him. Time will tell.

The ABC and latte sippers in their Howardphobia backed Latham, Rudd and Gillard. Now the same want to back Turnbull simply due to abbottphobio. Quite pathetic!

For Mr Abbott to come back from here is going to be seen as fake, I really believe he has blown any chance of becoming PM.
All the down talking of our economy, and his scrounging the depths of slime pits has set a terrible precedent.
The coalition have taken politics to an all-time low, so much so they have forgotten to formulate policy.
Women in power are a very sore point, which he can't get over.
What do we look at when voting, policy, attitude, representation, intelligence, fairness, unbiased, everything comes into play before voting, and the political leaders play a crucial role in the voting.
2013 is set to be exciting, in the world of Australian politics

Could anyone imagine Turbull at a Union Barbeque? I can't.

Turnbull is the epitome of the very small group of monied elite who, it must be said, are controlling most of the world at his point in time and exploiting it on a massive scale.

The world doesn't need political leadership derived from the Unions or the Monied Elite or the Legal profession. What we want are intelligent people who are honest and filled with integrity and compassion, people who will govern in the best interests of the majority of voters.

Does anyone know any folk who would fit this specification?

There is obviously an edict from the top of the labor party to attempt to undermine Abbott. As we can see here, all the useful little idiots have been called in to promote the message.

It probably won't work too well, the public are wising up to it. To day many only need to read the first sentence or two to see the push for what it is, & stop reading.

That there is no such movement from the Libs only shows that Labor require no help in undermining themselves.

Any thinking person could not help to see the concerted campaign over many years, to overcome the "honest John" title Howard had earned. All the nothing people making snide remarks.

They used it again to try to prop up the global warming scam. Nothing academics, obviously instructed to lend their doubtful support, bursting into print all over.

Now, after the misogynist campaign against Abbott was successful only within the brethren, they are trying to promote Turnbull, with puff pieces like this. Well sorry love, you'll have to get up earlier in the morning, & do a better job to get anywhere with this stuff. Most people have seen that Turnbull is just a paper cut out of Rudd, only not as cunning.

We need Turnbull like a large hole in the head, & we ain't buying.

A boringly middle or the road article about boringly middle of the road politicians, Turnbull and Rudd. Everything in the middle.

The average Australian voter has a warm affinity with that - being boringly in the middle. It's no wonder the punters like both of them. Nothing too challenging. No passion. No vision. Nothing with any dynamic. Nothing to ever get excited or worried about. Just steady in the middle. Let's have more of that.

Why not have Turnbull and Rudd for co-presidents of the Republic of Australia! What a great idea. A sort of liberal social democratic communism. No freedom and no oppression, just make sure everything is regulated and controlled so everything and everybody stays in the middle.

I imagine Turnbull and Rudd's platform would be to urge gently for more blandness, ordinariness and political correctness, whilst governing with a ministry of fellow chubby, moon-faced, under-whelming, bureaucratic underachievers. I imagine the greater middle class of solid bourgeois Aussies would be agreeable to that too. Then everything in Australia could be 'nice' and in the middle.

Once Turnbull and Rudd were up and moving forward, they could cut down all those tall poppy achievers, flog dole-bludger failures and sink all those invading leaky boat people. That lot are un-Australian. Those people refuse to stay compliant, fat, dumb and happy in the middle like everybody else. There's no place for that sort in Australia, comrade.

Yep, Turnbull and Rudd, popularly in the middle. Good luck folks.

Google tells us about Malcolm Turnbull that "1987: Leaves the law profession, creating an investment banking firm with Neville Wran and Nicholas Whitlam, Whitlam Turnbull & Co Ltd."

This from the SMH "The rise and rise of Malcolm Turnbull" September 16, 2008.

Malcolm is reported to have been good friends with the Whitlams, and also saw Neville Wran as a mentor. I would have thought that this gives him at least some Labor credentials.

Yes, Turnbull has style, and intelligence, is well spoken and presentable, and most of all is nothing like Abbott...
That's good enough for me :)

susanonline,

once upon a time the Labor Party claimed Slipper and Thompson had
style, and intelligence, were well spoken and presentable, and most of all were nothing like Abbott... too.

Where did you line up when the Labor cabinet trashed Rudd?

Did you readily jump aboard all those barrows when the Labor Party pushed them ... too?

Not at all. I have been a Greens supporter for the past two elections actually.
Although that doesn't preclude me from having opinions on leaders of other political parties does it?

<< A charming double-act between Turnbull and Rudd on Q&A… >>

<< You two have a lot in common >>

Erm… yes, they do, Sarah. They are both manic pro-growthers. That is; ANTIsustainabilityists!

What we desperately need is a ‘sustainable Australia, not a big Australia’, as Gillard put it.

Until recently, the population stabilisation / sustainability lobby was looking at Turnbull with considerable interest, in the belief that he had made some indications of moving in this direction.

But alas, he completely blew that out of the water and entrenched his position as being totally aligned with the vested-interest wishes of big business and the same old dinosaur political paradigm in which growth is seen as the answer to everything, faster growth is always better, and no attempt is made to separate out the good and bad aspects of growth.

Turnbull should now be completely beyond support from any clear-thinking voter who wants the best for our future in this country.

Ludwig, you probably appreciate why advocates of big government welcome growth - it means a never ending flow if increasing revenues. These are needed to cover the ever increasing demands for funding from those who feel entitled. Eliminating growth is likely to mean that revenues flatten, possibly declining if tax cuts are used to offset the feelings of declining prosperity, but then what do you do with the ever increasing demands for better services, more grants, more public servants, more this and that?

Seems to me that whichever way you look at it, we have to address these issues. My viewpoint is that we need and deserve a very capable and competent government that can cut fat out of the system, provide services much more efficiently, and address the evergrowing feelings of entitlement amongst those who contribute very little to the revenue streams needed to fund the nation. Smaller government and reduced entitlements are good, but the problem is that those addicted to big government and ever increasing entitlements have votes too, and they tend to vote for whomever throws the largesse around more extravagantly. Historically, as now, that has been Labor governments with the qualified exception of the Hawke/Keating government.

A push in the coalition ranks to go hard on industrial relations, with individual contracts, and unfair dismissal laws only apply to small business.
Work choices, no doubt would be rebadged. They want it put in the public domain, asap.
Abbott would be stupid enough to do it, i do not think Turnbull would.

Well thank you 579, for that small glimpse of honesty.

Obviously you prefer Turnbull as you know, like Labor, any policy of his would be to buy votes of a special interest sector, or of his mates. We of course hate that sort of policy making, & thus Turnbull, & also fear his interest in helping merchant bankers to a pot of gold with a global warming scam trading scheme.

It is nice to see why so many lefties want Turnbull, they assume he can be bought, just like the current Labor crop. Nice one.

Just tell us which Labour members staff you are on. My guess is Swan, with your similar IQs.

Dear Hasbeen,

Talking about pollies who can be bought... Gee whiz
I seem to recall Tony Windsor telling us about
how Mr Abbott pleaded for Windsor's vote - and
Abbott telling him that "He'd do anything to be PM,
short of sell his ar*se." And as for Mr Howard?
and the hospital he offered Tassie?

As Peter Coleman points out in "The Costello Memoirs,"
"That man was
determined to hang onto power, while possibly not
Mugabe-esque, was unyielding. John Howard is not an
unusual case. The pain and frustration of dislodging
Prime Minister Hawke or Bjelke-Petersen are fresh in
memory, Tony Blair was as unwilling to vacate 10
Downing Street as John Howard was to vacate Kirribilli House
(although Blair finally made way for his successor)."

The US set the world an example in constitutionally limiting
the number of years a President may remain in office, but
even there Bill Clinton strove very strongly to return to
the White House on the coat-tails of his wife.

Politicians firmly believe that their day will come.
They're politicians in the way others are poets. They
can't help themselves.

It identifies only two periods of Australian "fiscal profligacy" in recent years, both during Mr Howard's term in office - in 2003 at the start of the mining boom and during his final years in office between 2005 and 2007.
Mr Howard defended his record on Friday, saying that government spending as a percentage of GDP declined during his term.

Finance minister Penny Wong says the IMF has endorsed Labor's stimulus spending. Photo: Andrew Meares
''According to none other than the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Australia's fiscal position is the envy of the developed world,'' the former prime minister's spokesman said.
But the Grattan Institute economist, Saul Eslake, argues that Mr Howard's statement about spending declining as a percentage of GDP, while technically true, is irrelevant and misleading.
''The Howard government in its last two terms was rolling in cash,'' Mr Eslake said.
Mr Howard rode two booms - in mining and household spending - and as a result raked in ''extraordinary'' amounts of income during its last two terms.
During that period, Mr Eslake said, the Howard government increased spending ''in real terms'' at a faster rate than any other government since the Whitlam years.
Mr Eslake did say, however, that he was ''gobsmacked'' the IMF did not judge Gough Whitlam's government as profligate.
''That they didn't regard the 40 per cent plus increase in government spending in 1974 to 1975 under the Whitlam government as profligate . . . [that's] far worse than anything the Howard government undertook,'' Mr Eslake said.
The Minister for Finance, Penny Wong, said the IMF study endorsed the current Labor government's ''responsible spending decisions'' while diminishing Mr Howard's record.
''The study shows the Howard government clearly missed opportunities to effectively use the mining boom and strong global economic conditions to invest in Australia's future, and it debunks the myth spouted by Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey that the Howard government exercised spending restraint,'' Ms Wong said.

The Rudd Gillard governments have had greater revenues than the Howard Governments. Government income is increasing. Swan never ever claims revenue is decreasing. He only ever claims his projections of growth of revenue are decreasing.

This government and all it's hoodwinked supports take us for mugs. That's why they will be absolutely decimated at an election this year. The polls we see in the newspapers are wrong. Simply too many people are angry and disengaged and their opinions cannot be assessed by polsters. They refuse to be polled.

Abbott will be Australia's next elected PM. If the Labor party replace Gillard with Shorten, Abbott will very quickly expose Shorten for the absolute dummey he is. It won't take very much.

All this talk about Turnbull just makes more people angry and disengaged.

Mr Abbott is the least popular Opposition Leader
that Australia has ever had. Many people find him
to be not only an ambarrassment but rather scary
as well. If Mr Abbott continues to slide in the
polls a nervous Liberal Party will replace him.
And the only viable alternative that the Liberal
Party has is - Mr Turnbull.

Tony has not bothered to talk so far , so what makes you think he would start with shorten.
Can you imagine tony and the worm ?
Turnbull is the only hope you have of not making a fool of yourselves.
The only time Abbott has talked is when someone has given him a script.
The good old golden years exposed again.