Costello bombshell on PM ‘deal’ – smh.com.au
Costello bombshell on PM ‘deal’ – National – smh.com.au
Well it looks like Australia’s Liberal government are doing their best to self-destruct. The story was leaked in recent days about a meeting where John Howard promised Peter Costello that he would step down after 2 terms. Howard has denied this, Costello has confirmed the story as accurate. I believe Costello. Having said that I think both of them are unwise. At a time where Kim Beazley is slowly but steadily rebuilding his profile and enhancing his chances of winning an election (through feeding the mostly unwarranted public paranoia about the industrial relations changes) the Liberals need to maintain a united front. Their best chance of winning is for Howard to remain leader until the next election with Costello continuing as Treasurer (after which time a relatively prompt and orderly handover could be achieved). Their second best chance of winning would have been following an orderly handover to Costello in the next 6 months – this no longer seems like an option now. Now that the two leaders are publicly telling stories that are at odds with each other, surely one of them will have to go. I’m sure that Howard would not want to give up the job in such a messy fashion, and he still comands the numbers, so my guess is that we will lose Costello from the front bench (at least for the time being) – but all that instability will seriously affect the government’s chances at the next election no matter who is in charge. Howard and Costello have each shot the other in the foot this time – the next shot may prove fatal…
Categories : Australia, News, Politics | 4 Comments
