MALCOLM TURNBULL

Newsflash 17 October 2012: The Sydney Morning Heralds first eleven Phillip Coorey,
David Marr, Lenore Taylor, Peter Hartcher, Michelle Gratten, Peter FitzSimons, Mike Carlton,
Jacqueline Maley, Waleed Aly, Anne Summers and Bianca Hall - has failed to save Prime
Minister Ms Gillard and her Government through the front door. Apparently, its now time for
the second eleven to have a go through the back door.
Elizabeth Farrellys attempt to destabilise the Liberal Party (Sydney Morning Herald 17 October
2012) through her support for Malcolm Turnbull to replace Tony Abbott as leader was
deplorable journalism. In essence, Farrelly pushed for Turnbull because all her friends and
acquaintances said they would vote for Turnbull. In an admirable piece of honesty, normally
absent from her newspaper, she admitted she probably didnt know anyone who voted Liberal.
The article contained all Left buzz words, but like Turnbull himself, contained no substance. It
was full of esoteric nonsense more likely to appeal to the inner-city greens and Balmain basket
weavers. The low point was her laughable suggestion that Lucy and Malcolm Turnbull could be
our Bill and Hillary Clintons or Kennedys. That would be as insulting to the Clintons as
suggesting to Baroness Margaret Thatcher that Ms Gillard was our Margaret Thatcher.
Although modesty is not Turnbulls long suit, I dont think even in his wildest dreams he rates
himself in the same class as Bill Clinton.
If you look beyond the puff pieces written by the marshmallow liberals in the media you would
find a poor record of a politician who is unelectable as Prime Minister.
A. Turnbulls misguided Adlerian desire to be a significant person.
Sadly, Turnbull is such an elitist he thinks only the ABC, the Herald, inner-city greens, latte set,
Balmain basket weavers, art gallery goers and Mardi Gras organisers can give him that
recognition. He doesnt realise that he needs recognition from the swinging voters in the
Western Suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne to be elected. Consequently, he will never appeal or
relate to the masses.
B. Major mistakes which will come back to haunt Turnbull

1. The Ozcar affair involving Treasury official Godwin Gretsch. He made false and poorly
researched claims about Mr Rudd and Wayne Swan based on forged emails. And, in so
doing, his support in the polls declined further than anyone elses had in 25 years.

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Turnbull will never be forgiven for this ineptitude and offensive accusations against Mr
Rudd and Swan.
2. As leader, Turnbull directed his party to support the Labor Partys Carbon Pollution
Reduction Scheme. This was the worst option for climate warming believers (who in
failure, now represent themselves as climate change disciples) but it was possible, the
National Party may have withdrawn from the Coalition because of his irresponsible
decision.
3. When he was the Environment Minister he approved the Bell Bay Pulp Mill in Tasmania.
4. During the 2007 election he attracted ridicule by offering $10 million for research into a
bogus Russian technology, which claimed it could produce rain from clear skies. This
enlightened us on how he has been gullible enough to swallow the global warming
science.

C. Turnbull is not a team player

1. He leaks to the media eg his position on Kyoto.

2. He undermines Abbott by commenting before Abbott on issues which should be left to
the party leader eg the Cory Bernardi and Alan Jones issues.
3. In speeches he undermines Abbott by questioning party policy development and Abbotts
handling of Question Time.
4. When he was Opposition Treasury spokesman he rarely contributed to the party think
tank responsible for framing questions. Invariably, he turned up at those meetings and
asked how many questions he had been allocated and then left.
5. When as treasurer of the Party he was behind budget in his fund raising, he would bully
local members to handover over funds they had raised for their own seats.
6. His shortcomings notwithstanding, Alan Jones is one of the few media people to take the
fight to the government. However, there is no doubt Turnbull wounded Jones, and
therefore Abbott, by siding with some of the left-wing ratbags in Change.org and
Facebooks, Destroy the Joint, who were waging a guerrilla war against 2GBs
advertisers. In a confusing statement, Turnbull said Jones, the bully, was getting a taste
of his own medicine, but then claimed the Facebook ratbags werent bullying Jones.
Amazingly he then went on to praise the inspiring guerrilla tactics against 2GBs
advertisers. This comment will haunt him for the rest of his political career.

MALCOLM TURNBULL
Perhaps when he is lobbying the publishers of the worlds dictionaries to change the
thousands of years-old definition of marriage, he can get them to change the meaning of
bullying. As an aside, if it is good enough for feminists to demand new words eg chair or
chairperson instead of chairman, and if it is good enough for women cricketers to
demand to be called batters instead of batsmen, surely the gays should be able to find
another word other than marriage to describe their union.
D. Turnbull has no nous and therefore will never inspire the country to follow him:

1. He set up, or allowed to be set up, a supporters club to raise funds for the election. The
cost of the 'gold memberships' was reported to be $55,000. This entitled the 'gold
member' to have various types of access to Turnbull. This just reinforced the public's
perception that Turnbull was an elitist and didn't deal with ordinary people and only
lobbied for the rich. Second, many people thought he should spend his own money to get
elected.
2. He visited the Richmond electorate in 2007, and to the horror of the Tweed people
floated the idea of damming the Tweed River near Tyalgum. This was unbelievably
stupid. Tweeds water-supply dam was overflowing. Building a dam was never going to
win the Coalition a single vote, but it certainly lost the Coalition a number of votes and
will continue to do so. Subsequent denials made no difference.
3. Most people would believe that if Turnbull wants to be leader he should at least pretend
he is interested in parliament and his colleagues. I rarely miss watching Question Time
and he appears to text more than a teenage girl.

E. Turnbulls Portfolio Performance:

1. Turnbull attracted more angst than praise as Minister for the Environment and Water
Resources
2. Turnbull pushed his own agenda when Opposition Treasury spokesman
3. Turnbull hasnt laid a glove on the Government over the National Broadband Network
despite the fact that most experts claim it is a huge waste of money and will be out of
date before we are all connected.
I would have thought that it was pretty easy to convince the public that, for the same
price as the NBN, the Opposition could not only give them a better internet service but
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more hospitals, plus a National Disaster Relief Fund, plus a National Disability Insurance
Scheme, plus the finished upgrade of the Pacific Highway. To compound Turnbulls
problems he has whined incessantly about the Government not having a business plan or
costings of its projects, but then tells us he is unable to provide full costings of the
Oppositions alternative. When he finally comes up with his costings he ought to explain
how it is morally right for the Australian Government to sell Telstra to its citizens, and
then a few years later set up an almost identical business in opposition to Telstra and
then introduce legislation to favour its new organisation.
4. Turnbulls performance with respect to attacking Senator Conroy over his mishandling of
the Australia Network contract can only be described as deplorable. The drovers dog
could have done a better job. The Auditor-General delivered a scathing report about
Conroy and his department, and if ever a Minister should have been forced to resign it
was Conroy, but Turnbull just wasnt up to it.

F. Turnbull is a poor loser

1. He hasnt stopped whining about losing the Republican Referendum in 1999. In so

doing, he is telling the electorate his wishes are more important than theirs. If a republic
were so important to him he shouldnt have withdrawn from the battle. This was classical
Adlerian response to discouragement.
2. When he lost the leadership of the Liberal Party he threw all his toys out of the cot and
said he would resign from his seat. Another Adlerian response to discouragement. Sadly,
for liberal supporters, he reneged on that promise and sought recognition from the selfdesignated elite champagne socialists like Farrelly.

All this is predominantly about Malcolm Turnbull and, while Farrelly is not worth wasting time
on, I cannot believe the audacity of people of her ilk who believe they have a divine right to have
their own person as leader. Initially, they wanted Mr Rudd. Then Ms Gillard. Both have ruined
the country. Now they want the Turnbulls, who are more like Ken and Barbie than the Clintons.
Give me a break.