Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s obsession with Tony Abbott makes him look fragile
IF the rest of this 103-day election campaign goes like the first full day,
Malcolm Turnbull is toast. Incredibly, on Tuesday the Prime Minister again attacked the man whose job he stole, Tony Abbott.
This time he tried to rob Abbott of his biggest boast: that he’d stopped the boats that under Labor brought 50,000 illegal immigrants.
“Whether it is Howard, Abbott or Turnbull, we’ve had the same policy,” scoffed Turnbull. “It was not something that was invented by Tony Abbott.”
In fact, Turnbull as opposition leader opposed bringing back the “Pacific solution” —
the offshore detention in Nauru and Manus Island that has proved so successful again. But why disparage Abbott and diminish the successes of the government Turnbull leads?
It makes no sense. Turnbull should know Abbott now has nothing but his record to defend.
But Turnbull seems to think making Abbott seem a failure will destroy his minuscule chances of returning as leader.
Or maybe he just figures the worse Abbott looks, the more he himself shines. Whatever, last November Turnbull gave Abbott what journalists called a “slapdown” when he needlessly “repudiated” his suggestion —
adopted this week by Britain — that Europe copy him by
turning back the boats flooding the continent with illegal immigrants.
Turnbull said he had “no intention or desire to give advice on these matters” to nations such as Germany, since “each country faces very different circumstances”.
Weeks later he again reportedly gave Abbott a “slapdown” for suggesting troops be sent to fight Islamic State alongside Arab and Western allies. Turnbull misrepresented and mocked Abbott, telling parliament there was no room for “gestures or machismo” and ridiculing an allegedly “unilateral” Australian invasion to destroy the terrorist group that has since slaughtered civilians in Paris and now Brussels. This week’s brawl was again prompted by Turnbull’s pride, nettled this time by the charge that he’s going to the election just with Abbott’s policies.
“That’s quite untrue,”
he protested on the ABC. “We dealt with Senate voting reform. That was not on the agenda (under Abbott).”
Rubbish
. It was always Abbott’s plan to stop micro parties getting elected on secret preference deals. Labor senator Kim Carr says an Abbott minister even sounded him out about it. Having Turnbull adopt his election strategy and then accuse him of dogging it irked Abbott, who responded: “False. My plan was to do it as the last measure of the current parliament.” An hour later, he told Sky News the Turnbull government was worth re-electing because it was “running on the Abbott government’s record”. True, but Turnbull still couldn’t let it rest, saying Abbott was “not right” and repeating a meaningless slogan from a US political comedy, Veep: “There is continuity and there is change.”
That exchange dominated the TV news on day one, with Turnbull looking fragile, his government divided and his slogans borrowed.
Is this smart? Are these the actions of a leader? 
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