Waiting in the wings

Comment

Is Malcolm Turnbull the new Paul Keating? It’s a comparison he would likely decry in public, but perhaps privately support. Let’s examine the evidence.

He is at once adored and despised. The number of foaming-at-the-mouth lefties and Labor Party hacks in my close circle of friends who profess a guilty love for MT is astronomical. Some content themselves dreaming he will break free from his Tory shackles and start his own progressive party in the true small-L tradition.

But for every Turnbull-phile there are hordes of haters who resent his riches, knowing arrogance and omnipresence. No matter the austerity of his childhood, he is now the ultimate inner-urban pin-up boy, and the politics of envy that buoys Australian suburbia will likely condemn him to a lacklustre fate. “If you’re not living in Sydney you’re just camping out”, anyone?

Like Keating, MT has the ability to make the arguments. This is in stark contrast with almost every other current member of parliament.

Partly through his refusal to compromise his stance on the ETS, Turnbull has leased himself a space wherein he is not captive to the prescribed, focus-grouped lines pumped out of party HQ. He walks a narrow tightrope, but his eloquence and intelligence allow him to distance himself from Tony Abbott where need be.

It’s a great pity this gift is so undervalued by the electorate. Keating’s achievement in convincing great swathes of caucus, Treasury and the public to support economic reform has never really been adequately recognised and rewarded.

Turnbull did more to convince Australians of the merits of a market-based mechanism for reducing carbon emissions than the Government ever did. His appearances on the ABC’s Q&A generate applause for almost every word he utters.

Like PJK, MT has also had a turbulent time ascending to the party’s leadership. Although not a career politician ala Keating, his ferocious ambition was always recognised.

They are type-A personalities, natural leaders – but not with the popularity of Hawke or Rudd.

Keating was saved by being in Government when he challenged and won – or he may have succumbed to the same fate as Turnbull.

This term will be a fascinating test of MT’s true colours. He will participate in conscience votes on issues that demonstrate his tenuous ideological fit with the Liberals. A carbon price will be back on the agenda, but MT is back in shadow cabinet, expected to toe the party line.

With a flaky majority of one, you can bet the Government will be chasing his vote if they think there’s any chance he’ll cross the floor.

And now he is charged with the task of destroying the Government’s flagship election policy, the National Broadband Network.

MT is more than capable of running the ‘debt and deficit’ line against the NBN, while maintaining his position as an informed technophile. His argument about wireless has great traction with those who already love him, and virtually none with those who don’t.

But many might suspect a good deal of disingenuousness on his part. He cannot allow his greatest asset – his credibility as a straight-shooter and man of principle – to become collateral damage of his new role as NBN-wrecker.

The other question is whether MT, like Keating, will challenge again. Nobody doubted his lingering aspirations when he announced he would, after all, recontest Wentworth in 2010.

But Tony Abbott’s position as leader is, for now, safe and Turnbull, we can be sure, is not in this to be shadow communications spokesman. He may be stuck waiting for the fall that never comes.

– By Michael Koziol