Humble servant of the Nation

Scott Morrison surveys the rubble he’s inherited

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A political schism once begun cannot be stopped. It develops a force of its own and moves in ways that cannot be controlled. The consequences can only be appreciated after the fires have been extinguished.

Scott Morrison will be sworn in as the 30th Prime Minister of Australia. The fight is not over. In many ways, it has only just begun. He won the spill 45 votes to Dutton’s 40. Julie Bishop was knocked out in the first round of voting. Morrison’s deputy is Josh Frydenberg.

Malcolm Turnbull’s delaying tactics allowed Morrison to assemble the numbers. He almost certainly did not have them yesterday.

n the comings days, expect the words “healing”, “repair”, “revival” and “restoration” to be vomited out of a thesaurus by senior Liberal figures. These words will be a nonsense, yet another damning exercise in the party’s obsession with introspection.

Full column here.

355 Comments

  • Dennis Brookes says:

    What a shocking misfire by ghastly Tony Abbott and his glove puppet Peter Dutton. A pox on those two.

  • Carl on the Coast says:

    Is he still there?

  • smoke says:

    swans duttonated

  • Jean Baptiste says:

    My goodness, is Turnbull the latest to fall victim to the “Assad Curse.”

  • Carl on the Coast says:

    Not such a good start for the bloke from the Shire to admit not knowing one end of a sheep from the other, even if it was in jest. But he’s going bush anyway, apparently to find out. And its started to rain too.

  • BASSMAN says:

    40,000 home lose power in Sydney’s inner west…do we see Shorten scheming and screaming like the
    Liberals do trying to make political advantage out of it? This is the second time this has happened now. Traffic lights, cash registers, ATM’s down. The Liberals and 2GBiased STILL reference S Australia when they know damn well the problems there were caused by 23 towers being taken out in a storm. And that said, SA just withstood the hottest summer on record with no blackouts and has even donated power to Victoria’s grid!

    • Dismayed says:

      SA is a net exporter, exporting power about 90% of the year into the NEM. The last AEMO report on prices showed SA has the 3rd lowest prices for power in the Nation. The AEMO report released this week highlighted that fossil fuel power stations dropped out 100 times since December 2017. It stated the biggest risk to NEM grid stability is the coal fired generation and that more investment in Renewables was required to ensure the reliability standard of 99.998% is maintained.

    • Bella says:

      Shhh Bassy, the Fibs & their coal-mad Resources Council will be onto you for talking-up SA’s renewable energy mix! 😊

  • Milton says:

    David Marr all over the shop on the Drum (first time for me). First he reckons that Murdoch had an agenda against truffles. Samantha Maiden then pointed out that the Fairfax shock jocks ran an anti-Turnbull line (which was basically pointing his obvious failings as PM). Then Marr pointed out that Murdoch’s influence has been ineffectual (!!!), yet it still emboldened the libs within to put the sword into Turnbull. What contortions Marr manages.

    • Carl on the Coast says:

      Well ….., he would, wouldn’t he Milton, if you get me drift.

    • Dwight says:

      The tinfoil hat wearers who think that every News columnist has a “Rupert Phone” on their desk to get today’s talking points. And, yes Hadley and Jones work for Fairfax–but that doesn’t fit the narrative.

    • BASSMAN says:

      YOU SAY “Then Marr pointed out that Murdoch’s influence has been ineffectual” ……it WAS ineffectual at the last election.
      2Gbiased, Bolt, and scribes from the Terror had a long siren scream that Labor was going to lose a heap of seats in Western Sydney. 2GBiased ran a 24/7 campaign, their dodgy polls showing 99% of listeners would not vote Labor.
      Result? A total failure for Bolt, Jones, Fordham and all of the rest of the jocks who had failed Liberal pre-selection in past years. At least Bolt is approaching honesty re these 2GB ‘polls’. On ‘The Big Guns’ last week he hinted the polls should not be taken seriously because ‘after all they are our listeners’. By that he means they are conservative right wing over 70’s.

    • John O'Hagan says:

      There was a very obvious NewsCorp campaign to bring this about. This is being pointed out across the political spectrum. The things that Marr pointed out, that other outlets were involved, or that previous campaigns have failed, are not inconsistent with that fact.

      This kind of political interference does not require a “Rupert phone” or a tinfoil hat. It’s what media barons have always done, and it’s kind of the main point of being one. Especially nowadays, when there’s no money in it.

      • Jack The Insider says:

        John, that’s bullshit. Are you seriously trying to tell me the Liberal Party room is that weak it takes its orders from News columnists or Sky News presenters?

        • wraith says:

          Well, they did toss a PM over a 30 Newspoll scare. (coughs quietly)

        • John O'Hagan says:

          Of course not. But I hope you agree that the media can influence public opinion, and that politicians fear being on the wrong side of that?

          I may have told this story before, but a mate of mine scored a cadetship at the Herald Sun here in Melbourne in the early 90s. He told me at the time that the orders were very clear: the aim was to get Jeff Kennett elected. Looks like little has changed in that department, judging by the non-stop hatchet job Daniel Andrews gets from that venerable organ.

          I don’t believe for a second that you personally get told to what to write. I also don’t believe that a dozen writers for the same company all wake up the same morning in different parts of the country and spontaneously decide to write a piece bagging Robert Manne, or Duncan Storrer, or Larissa Behrendt, or the ABC, or whoever is the (invariably progressive) bete noir du jour.

          • Jack The Insider says:

            Mate, I doubt a cadet would have been given that sort of instruction. I can tell you after working at The Australian for 11 years, I’ve never received any direction from editors or management. Not a thing. The election of Kennett came after various disgraces from the Carr-Kirner govts. They were doomed and everyone inside the parliamentary party in Victoria knew it. It is the one of occasions where we can safely say the media’s role was of little influence to voting behaviour.

  • Henry Donald J Blofeld says:

    Bless you John McCain. US senator John McCain, the maverick Republican who survived a Vietnam War prison camp and ran unsuccessfully for president, is discontinuing medical treatment for an aggressive form of brain cancer, his family has said in a statement, a year after he announced his diagnosis.
    https://tinyurl.com/y7bo5c97

  • BASSMAN says:

    Morrison should not even be in the parliament let alone PM.! Michael Towke a kid from my old school Marcellin College, won easily. On the first ballot, he polled 10 times as many votes as Morrison, 82 votes to 8, who was eliminated in the first round. “A campaign against me started four days after pre-selection,” he said . The Looter slime machine was employed to discredit him as well as sections of the media. Morrison clearly had backers who wanted him to get the seat. ”These guys were prepared to ruin my life,” Towke stated. Towke’s honour has been restored. and his name cleared-Morrison should NOT be the Member for Cook.

  • Milton says:

    Nikki Savva getting a well earned serve in the comments section for her Turnbull barracking and Abbott rubbishing. Do some in the media see their hypocrisy in accusing Abbott of plotting whilst Savva herself acknowledges Turnbull’s dethroning of Abbott was months in the planning? And be sure that planning involved leaks an all sorts of underhanded tactics. Was there ever a more frequent liberal guest on Q&A than Turnbull?? And he talks about a Murdoch conspiracy.

    • Boadicea says:

      Abbott was outplayed – he underestimated Turnbull bigtime. As for Malcolm, I wish him all the best. He must feel good to be out of that madhouse.
      And TA annihilated his party in the process – what a snake.

    • BASSMAN says:

      Overall I find Savva one of the more balanced scribes in the Oz. I like her work. She has a great
      head for politics as well and says some of the nest stuff on Grinsiders.

      • Milton says:

        overall I do too, Bassy but not on matters Turnbull. her objectivity seems lost on that front but she is usually one of the more sober and astute observer on our political landscape.

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