What a shame that Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull never found a way to work effectively together. Or to look at it another way, what a shame for our democracy that these two men both wound up at the top of the same political party.
This past week has seen laudable examples of Messrs Abbott and Turnbull at their best. The former, single-minded, with strong convictions and determination – the ideal conservative leader – the latter playing a deft hand on the progressive issue of a moratorium on coal in a way that, dare we say it, only a talented Labor leader would normally get away with.
Speaking at the second Thatcher Lecture at London’s Guild Hall, Mr Abbott displayed the very characteristics that made him so effective not only in opposition but in the implemention of two of his key achievements in office; namely, stopping the boats and ‘shirt-fronting’ international villains. This was a speech of conservative values and forthright international warnings that would have warmed the cockles of Margaret Thatcher’s heart.
Meanwhile, back home, Mr Turnbull dealt with the increasingly hysterical and moronic leftist demonisation of our coal industry in a way that would have warmed the charcoal embers of Bob Hawke’s or Paul Keating’s heart.
The European refugee crisis made the timing of Mr Abbott’s speech acute. ‘No country or continent can open its borders to all comers without fundamentally weakening itself’, said Mr Abbott, subtly channeling a man he mentioned elsewhere in his speech who has been unfairly denounced for decades for his prescience about open borders, Enoch Powell. That it has taken an Aussie ex-PM to ram this truth home on the world stage – and to provide a workable political template for tough border control – is intriguing enough. But Mr Abbott went further, (again subtly) pointing the finger of blame for the chaos engulfing the Middle East on the weakness and indecision of Barack Obama: ‘yet those who won’t use decisive force end up being dictated to by those who will.’ Touché. Mr Abbott even self-deprecatingly referred to his ‘baddies versus baddies’ line, as good a description as any of the Syrian quagmire.
Back home, Mr Turnbull finally upset the apple cart on the ludicrous expectations of his luvvie fans by a blunt rejection of the so-called moratorium on coal mining, and indeed, with a full-throated support for what the ads now call ‘this amazing little black rock’. ‘If Australia were to stop all of its coal exports it would… not reduce global emissions one iota’ he claimed, accurately. (It’s a shame he didn’t also point out that if Australia were to cut 100 per cent of its CO2 emissions it also wouldn’t reduce global emissions one iota, but that might have to wait for another day.) Mr Turnbull even went so far as to reiterate Josh Frydenberg’s moral case for coal – something the left regard as ‘deranged’, ‘spurious’ and ‘obscene’ – by warning against driving nations such as India into ‘energy poverty’. Combined with the appointment of new Chief Scientist Alan Finkel, who, despite a tendency to indulge in Turnbull-esque Lateline waffle, appears sensible enough to keep nuclear energy ‘on the table’; isn’t spooked by coal seam gas; and reassuringly, sets the timetable for 100 per cent renewable energies well into the never never, there is hope that Mr Turnbull may resist being seduced entirely by the climate change hoopla about to take place in Paris.
Oh, and another plus for Mr Turnbull (while we’re feeling the love) is the decision to send Wyatt Roy to Israel. Hopefully this youthful MP will come back not only with an appreciation of start-up technologies and ‘innovation’, but with a better understanding of the Palestinian nightmare than most – make that any – of his generation.
Mr Abbott’s Thatcheresque clarity of vision and grasp of global security issues will be sorely missed on the world stage over the coming months and years. Which is the bad news.
But meanwhile back home, there is a glimmer of hope that Mr Turnbull may return from Paris sans inflicting the damage to our fossil fuels-based economy that his previous climate-change passions led many to fear.
Child abuse
The disgraceful decision by a Victorian headmistress to allow certain children not to sing the national anthem so as to avoid breaking religious rules that forbid ‘joyful events’ has been rightly lambasted by many. But surely what is even more disturbing is that for one entire ‘month of mourning’ every springtime these poor Aussie kids aren’t permitted to have any fun. Could there be a more apt description of institutionalised child abuse?
