This clever picture popped into my Inbox during the week without attribution. Without hesitation, I read into it this forlorn little puddle the crashing deterioration of Parliamentary Opposition and of the Liberal and National Parties since the rout of the Howard Government.
When a puddle gets that small, any farmer will tell you, the next thing is you get bogged. And that’s what’s happened first to Brendan Nelson and now to Malcolm Turnbull – BOGGED in their own populism and the public’s distaste for it.
Alan Ramsay, the Sydney Morning Herald irascible Canberra analysit puts it this way ….
When somebody asked one of the Turnbull team this week why on earth the new Liberal leader had kept the ineffective Julie Bishop as his deputy simply to maintain the electoral window dressing of a woman and her pearls, he was told: "Come off it. You know you can't shunt a sheila these days."
Obviously not, Ramsay writes. Not with the Government's Julia Gillard - Big Red - now Labor's Josephine to Kevin Rudd's Napoleon. Even John McCain sees value in a female running mate, however brutally thick.
Here's something else about Turnbull's mob: In just 10 months a full half of the last Howard ministry has gone, either to the back benches or out of political life. Voters ousted seven of them. Only eight of Howard's 18 inner cabinet ministers remain in Turnbull's cabinet. The bloke who was second from the bottom in seniority is now leader. Six junior ministers have gone, too. Sixteen of the 32 purged, one way or another.
The Coalition has been "de-Howardised", as some put it inelegantly. Nick Minchin's best efforts to keep alive the "Howard legacy" have crashed. Of Howard's top lieutenants, only Minchin and Tony Abbott survive. And Abbott has slipped from seventh in seniority to 10th under Turnbull.
If you’ld like to read Ramsay’s merciless view, log on to: http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/alan-ramsey/credibility-heads-straight-down-the-hill/2008/09/26/1222217514784.html
Posts
