Commentator Laurie Oakes will have none of Turnbull’s attacks on Rudd for being in New York with the world’s heads of State last week.
It was ridiculous to suggest Rudd should not have been on the spot, plugging into Wall Street and Washington, and spreading the message about the stability and strong capital base of Australia's financial institutions.
But that is what Turnbull did. When Laurie Oakes interviewed him on Nine's Sunday Morning News Turnbull conceded that Rudd's trip ``may be perfectly justifiable''. But he went on to bag it anyway.
"It's important to talk to those people,'' he said. "But there is such a thing as a telephone, you know?''
Oakes brands that as glib nonsense, but Turnbull got away with it - even though he'd justified his own trip to the US in April on the grounds that it was important to be there in person to understand the implications of the credit crunch on Australia.
Telephone calls are a nonsense substitute for face-to-face contact. Rudd would not have been able to take part in a financial round table with American economic experts and decision-makers, or attend a meeting on global economic issues convened by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, if he'd just let his fingers do the walking.
Rudd got his priorities right when he resisted pressure to abandon the trip, Oakes insists, and Turnbull knows it.
The new Opposition Leader, however, is proving to be just as much a populist as his predecessor Brendan Nelson. But because he has gravitas and credibility that Nelson lacked, he is better at it.
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