OZ politics about to boil over

Warrigal

Warrigal

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Location
Sydney, Australia
The Australian government, under the leadership of Tony Abbott, has just passed its two year milestone. There has to be a new election sometime in the twelve months but they are trailing in the polls very badly and would be unlikely to be re-elected unless something changes.

In February this year there was a putative attempt within the majority party of the government coalition to change the leadership but the numbers weren't there to force a spill of the top positions, so Tony Abbott promised to change, be more consultative and stop making "Captain's calls" all on his own. He promised that "good government begins from today" and he was given 6 months to get his act together and turn around the bad polls.

He didn't live up to his promises and the polls are consistently showing that the electorate is waiting for the next chance to vote - waiting with cricket bats at the ready.

Within the party there has been a growing number of disaffected and panicked members who are certain to lose their seats if an election were to take place tomorrow and they have been lining up behind a senior minister, Malcolm Turnbull, who is generally more popular with the electorate. This evening he announced that he has told the Prime Minister that he intends to challenge for the leadership. The deputy leader of the party, Julie Bishop, has also let him know that she is supporting the challenger.

There will be a party room meeting later tonight and the leadership positions will be declared vacant and a ballot will take place. We expect that Malcolm Turnbull will win the ballot because he wouldn't challenge unless he was pretty sure of the numbers. Whichever way it goes, the government will be completely reorganised. Not only is it likely that we will have a new prime minister, we will have a new treasurer and half the front bench is likely to be replaced by new faces.

Here is video of Malcolm Turnbull explaining why he is challenging for the leadership of his party, and by extension, for the position of prime minister.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-14/malcolm-turnbulls-full-press-conference/6774744

This is Tony Abbott's response.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-...alcolm-turnbulls-leadership-challenge/6775336

The Australian people have no say in this process but we will pass judgement at the next election.
The Brits will understand this system but the Americans will find this very peculiar. This is why I'm posting it.
I'll let you know the result.
 

We have a new prime minister - Malcolm Turnbull - 55 votes to 44.
He will now allocate other ministerial positions and the Governor General will make the official appointments.

He likes leather jackets. Much better than budgie smugglers and lycra bike gear.

096278-48a06fc2-25d8-11e5-b2b1-af71b9aa897c.jpg
 
Do boil it down to terms this Yank will understand.. WHY are people so dissatisfied with the current leadership? What did they say they were going to do but didn't? and what are the politics of this challenger? What is he running on? Your process isn't of that much interest to me.. but your political stances are.
 
QuickSilver said:
Do boil it down to terms this Yank will understand.. WHY are people so dissatisfied with the current leadership? What did they say they were going to do but didn't? and what are the politics of this challenger? What is he running on? Your process isn't of that much interest to me.. but your political stances are.
Click to expand...
He was elected on a platform of three word slogans, made lots of promises which he then proceeded to break in the first year and brought in a very unfair budget where the lower income people bore the brunt of cuts while the wealthy maintained their concessions etc. They couldn't get most of it through the Senate and it was still a failed budget when the second budget was due.

The Australian PM is supposed to be 'first among equals' but TA was unable to lead a team so he had a tendency towards what he called 'captains picks' and made some very silly decisions that made him, the government and Australians look ludicrous. For the last 30 or so opinion polls the government has been trailing the opposition and looking like being a one term show. This is why his party decided that he had to go now while there is still time to regroup in time for next year's election.

In short, he was a formidable Leader of the Opposition and successfully shredded the previous Labor Government but he is absolutely inept at governing. Malcolm will do better if he can get the rest of the party to stop their infighting.

There are lots of sites tracking promises made at the last election.

This one is the ABC website and indicates promises delivered, broken or still in progress.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/factcheck/promisetracker/

This article looks at just one promise, made to the small business sector, and it shows how he made promises to be for the small end of town but when the legislation appeared, it favoured the big end. This is pretty characteristic of much of the legislation that was proposed and the reason why the Senate kept amending or refusing his legislation.

http://www.businessspectator.com.au...otts-broken-promises-will-come-back-haunt-him
 
We have been taking an interest DW, as we also have interest here, with a former Marxist firebrand now the Leader of the Labour party. hope that your new PM is better than Abbot.
 
Ralphy1 said:
He looks like an aging undercover on some lame crime show...:eek:nthego:
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Ha, ha, Ralphy1--truly at your wittiest best!
Malcolm T. is one of the richest men in Australia, equal to Clive Palmer, Gina Rhinehart, whereas Tony Abbott has very little money, has even been cunningly denied a pension by being fired 4 days before due date.
Maybe Malcolm "will do better" because he's rich, has contacts with other rich people, but mainly because he thoroughly understands the importance of MONEY!
 
Kate Carnell, speaking on behalf of the business community has given her seal of approval.
Rupert Murdoch is probably less than thrilled and a number of shock jocks have been thrown off stride.
 
Tony Abbot has his possible retirement canceled for being fired 4 days before the proper date? Seems like time for some sort of law suite or other settlement for those that close to fulfillment. Like maybe a proportional amount for not doing full time.
 
Yes. First you have to take out Australian citizenship, then renounce any other citizenship you may have. Then you can stand for election.
You should have started forty years ago because it takes time to climb the greasy pole to the top.
 
Which Commonwealth? The Commonwealth of Australia or the British Commonwealth of Nations?
Or do you mean the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, or Virginia?
 

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