Liberal woes
Things are yet again quiet here at work so I’ve had plenty of time to scan the various news websites and read up on the Liberal party leadership intrigues.
Here’s my 2c worth.
1. Malcolm Turnbull lost my remaining respect for him when he publicly sabotaged Joe Hockey on the weekend. It’s clear Turnbull has virtually no chance of remaining leader so why pre-emptively criticise the one person who might be a succesful leader who actually agrees somewhat with Turnbull’s position on the ETS? Turnbull’s loyalty only seems to be to himself rather than the good of his party.
2. Joe Hockey is my favourite person in the Liberals. He seems like a nice, smart guy with sensible opinions on things and he’s a Christian as well. I do feel sorry for him though because he’ll be coming to the leadership in a difficult time with virtually zero chance of winning the next election. I see him as being a bit similar to Kim Beazley – hopefully the Liberals won’t assasinate him as well and over the next 4 years he can rebuild the party and maybe go one better than Beazley did.
3. The Liberals must take some sort of action on climate change. I can see their points about wanting to wait and see what the rest of the world does and that really whatever we in Australia do will make no difference compared to big economies like China, India, USA etc so we shoudln’t put ourselves at a competitive disadvantage. But to do nothing is political suicide – Hockey (if he becomes leader) will have a massive challenge soothing the climate sceptics in his party but still remaining true to his own impulse to construct an ETS. Turnbull’s crash through strategy was a disaster but I don’t know if taking a softer approach will work much better with these hard right wing types. A huge challenge, but if he can somehow get through it and get something passed so the next election is not fought over climate, then Hockey might have a slightly better chance of beating Rudd.
Will be interesting to watch.
Tags : climate change, joe hockey, liberal party, turnbull
Categories : Australia, Politics | 0 Comments
