Old devils

This blog has long been down on Alby Schultz and Bill Heffernan. With this, the idea that they might make life hard for politicians with more guts and brains than they do would be genuinely astonishing unless you understood where they came from. The whole culture of modern political parties depends on bullying, now that policy is too hard. Civilised disagreements can only be had over impersonal matters; when ego fills the void where substantive issues were, folks are gonna get hurt and those who limp away shrieking are confused with those who give up in disgust.

Labor started it with the idea that caucus decisions could not be departed from, and the culture of the 'rat' for the freethinker who slipped the surly bonds of backroom fixers. The Liberals used to be a lot more subtle in a private school-fragging way until Howard instituted the full Führerprinzip. It's not just the majors: the Democrats did a nice line in passive-aggressive control learned in staffrooms across the country, and those Greens who came out of the various communist organisations love a good pogrom; they can't measure their own progress by trees saved etc., there must be self-criticism sessions for fifth columnists.

Peter Debnam was a big fan of tough dumb campaigning and look where it got him: John Hewson without the charisma. They don't see the link between poor campaigning and poor electoral outcomes. Schultz and Heffernan are frustrated that young Abbott is blowing their last chance, and even more so that he's not consulting them. They don't understand that they are making a Coalition government less likely, not more so; they don't understand why anyone would think that way.

Now you can see why election ad campaigns are so negative - bullying works internally, it has to work on those who are so wishy-washy they can't get involved. If anyone within that party had any misgivings whether or not they'd work, would they speak up? On what basis would anyone kybosh a dull and negative campaign? Who can you persuade that such campaigns don't work, and what proof would be accepted?

Colless at brink of irrelevance

In the thin gruel of a Malcolm Colless article, we rarely see a substantial chunk of fact. Paranoia, wild surmisings and seizing on something trivial and irrelevant and squeezing it to death is standard. This doesn't disappoint fans of bare-minimum journalism, where a little bit of useful information serves as a launching pad for doom, gloom and four-year terms.

The little bit of useful information is the Last Stand at Traralgon. Colless accepts without question the idea that three-cornered contests (where both the Liberals and Nationals contest an election against one another) represent political death for the Coalition. Normally three-cornered contests depress the Labor vote, but in the aftermath of defeat the two parties could only enhance their image of weakness by running against one another.

Then, at the end, there is this genuinely marvellous piece of imagery:

"There's no light on the hill, just the sound of crickets in the dark," was how one despondent conservative powerbroker summed it up.

Brilliant!

In Gippsland, both parties would produce two mediocre candidates who'd pussyfoot around one another, while Labor would choose a candidate with nothing to lose and keen to give it a red-hot go. The latter qualities would impress people not swayed by party affiliation, rubbing salt into Coalition wounds. You can have all the polls you like, but the Liberals will ignore them and then yell at their scrutineers for "being negative": the Minchin Principle, never tell me anything I don't want to hear. The Minchin Principle put the Coalition where it is today, and will keep it there for some time yet.

The obvious joint-Coalition candidate for Gippsland is Julian McGauran. He's got the name, he's keen for a continuing political career, he has experience of both parties and they're both desperate enough to overlook his past.

Ironically, a fond belief within the NSW Coalition that it will win the next election is driving a resistance to any change in the status quo.

Because what you need to do is cruel the chances of the best chance for Coalition victory. The NSW Coalition is busy building a credible agenda for government - what they need is for Bill Heffernan to come and grandfather them and usher in the Meagher Government.

... veteran Liberal numbers man Bill Heffernan, who sees Gippsland as a watershed in the battle for reform inside the Coalition. He is pushing for a merger in which all existing Coalition positions in the House of Representatives and the Senate would be grandfathered. In other words, sitting members would not be caught in an internal preselection wedge.

What a brilliant strategist that man is: cementing dead wood in place is just what's needed in the face of defeat.

Nelson desperately needs some serious political traction if he is to survive the mounting internal grumblings over the lack of inspirational leadership in the Coalition. Failure to make headway on the Liberals' historical strong suit of economic management could well be the final straw.

There's also the degree to which this response is at all informed by the Listening Tour. Didn't work for Hillary Clinton, didn't work for Andrew Peacock in 1989-90, and I doubt there is a single successful politician anywhere who has bounced back from the ignominy of a Listening Tour to win office, hold it and achieve anything of note.

Malcolm Colless had a factoid handed to him, and promptly dropped it into a festering vat of foolishness. It would be a mistake for the Coalition to regard this man as a trusted intermediary with the public. Get the factoid, ignore the dross - but is Malcolm Colless worth the dross?

Between two stools

Ian Macfarlane knew better to entrust his political career to the Nationals. As head of the Cattlemen's Union in the 1990s, he had shown a real skill at getting seemingly unreconcilable interests to come together and form some sort of agreement; a case of political skill preceding political ambition. When he began expressing an interest in going into politics, but was reluctant to join the Nationals, John Howard persuaded him to join the Liberal Party and to replace Bill Taylor as MP for Groom.

But I doubt he'd suit the office,

Soon after he was elected in 1998 he went on Lateline with then-Nationals MP DeAnne Kelly. Kelly ragged him for being less than a true Queenslander for not having joined the Nationals (I hope the ABC can dig up that episode; it must look pretty funny right now). Howard made him a minister and, like all ministers in the latter part of that government, he built his reputation on shelling public money at those who already had plenty in the name of incentives.

The press gallery regarded Macfarlane as a "straight shooter" because history shows they are suckers for that rustic schtick.

At every point in Australia's political history, in every jurisdiction, there has been at least one MP from the backblocks who turns up to Parliament with grass-seeds in his eyebrows. He is patronised unrelentingly by the urban press because this visage affirms their half-arsed stereotypes about The Bush. That politician proves a master at diverting money earned in the cities to pet projects in his electorate, and those of his growing number of vassals. As that politician rises in the ranks - rarely to the head of government, but close enough to escape scrutiny while getting his demands met - he continues to be patronised by the same media who puzzle at his success in getting things done and in securing largesse for voters in the back-of-beyond. A six-lane sealed highway from Kickatinalong to Wheelabarrowback. An irrigation channel where the water evaporates before it reaches the neighbouring electorate.

Such politicians deliver nothing whatsoever for local indigenous communities, nor for those who claim the local Bishop is too lax in enforcing rules against ... that which must not be spoken; but such absences, silences, and negatives are achievements in themselves for representatives of this type.

In recent times Macfarlane, Barnaby Joyce, Ron Boswell, and Bill Heffernan have pulled this rustic schtick over the press gallery. Labor does it to a lesser extent as they hold fewer rural seats (e.g. Dick Adams and Warren Snowdon; Joel Fitzgibbon looks stupid when he tries). Old hands who can remember Peter Nixon, Ian Sinclair or even 'Black Jack' McEwen have should be awake to it, and in theory an journalist who is fooled greatly for a long period has let down their profession as well as the public. Press gallery journalism is different to other journalism because experienced journalists show themselves over and over to be willingly gulled by pretty much anyone who tries it on.

Pantomime rustics wear press gallery scorn lightly, and relish the relative freedom from scrutiny that urban pollies don't have and can't get. Bill Heffernan can make rampantly sexist and homophobic remarks and even bring a weapon into Parliament: the press gallery just roll their eyes, that's Bill being Bill! If Mal Brough spoke and carried himself like Bob Katter or Doug Anthony, he'd have succeeded in shrugging off the Slipper-Ashby thing and made Mark Dreyfus look like a whinger. Lawrence Springborg gets another shot at state leader of the LNP over some new face (or someone urban like Langbroek) from the southeast, where the party needs to win seats to regain office.

Cut forward to late 2009

... and Malcolm Turnbull was, as the journos say, beleaguered. For all the media coverage at the time showing the frontbench deserting Turnbull en masse, the Liberal Party was evenly divided over keeping Turnbull as leader - certainly if the alternative was Abbott. By then the Nationals had realised their traditional base was no longer capable of keeping them in the manner to which they had become accustomed. There was no conflict between mining an farming interests so long as miners kept their operations well away from farmlands (e.g. the deserts and semi-deserts, and the Barrier Reef), or maintained the sorts of mine-farm balances seen in communities like the Upper Hunter or Gippsland, where rural workers even out the ups and downs of agriculture with steadier incomes from the mines. At the time they thought climate change was an issue that could simply be voted down. The Nationals were showing their donors that they could deliver, and currying favour with the rise of conservative Liberals who promised a closer Coalition than had been seen for decades.

Abbott went to Brisbane to court LNP powerbrokers. Turnbull phoned individuals, who mostly ended up voting as the powerbrokers told them to. Abbott's defeat of Turnbull in 2009 was more like Gillard's defeat of Rudd the following year than either side dares admit; more than the press gallery, who saw it all up close, could comprehend.

The formation of the LNP in Queensland was a takeover of the Coalition in that state by the Nationals, with the purpose of securing the powers of state government to benefit Nationals constituencies. They resented the fact that the federal Coalition got involved in what they saw as internal Queensland matters; they agreed to Howard's demands to maintain a separate Liberal/National presence (including maintaining individuals like Macfarlane, or Brandis) in Canberra in return for letting the merger go ahead at state level. The powerbrokers who formed the LNP, like Bruce McIver, were the successors to Joh Bjelke-Petersen and Bob Sparkes: they arrogantly pushed aside their political opponents, scorned irrelevances in far-off Canberra (and the nerds who wanted to go there) and did pretty much what they wished. In 2009, the Nats who ran the LNP could happily sacrifice one Sydneysider leading the Liberal Party for another if it meant they'd be left alone.

One of the core motivations behind Abbott's leadership of the Liberal Party was the idea that Labor's victory in 2007 was illegitimate and some sort of mistake. They thought they were entitled to take up where they left off. Ian Macfarlane was no more, and no less, entitled than anyone.

Why 2015 is different to 2009

1. Macfarlane has, as Turnbull said in September, had a good go at being a minister. At the time Macfarlane seemed to agree - even in the face of the ignominy at being replaced by Christopher Pyne.
2. The LNP powerbrokers have been knocked on their arses. They fooled some of the people some of the time in southeastern Queensland, but this region proved so hard to govern and chewed up so much state government time that the Nationals' traditional plunder-to-the-regions never took off. That old Bjelke-Sparkes arrogance has been knocked out of them by Labor, and by the realisation that shafting Turnbull again would take them further backwards.
3. The LNP powerbrokers have knocked both their current leader (Warren Truss) and the likely next one (Barnaby Joyce) on their arses. If those guys can't win the LNP executive, what good are they? Their credibility is shot, and not only with Turnbull.
4. Consider this, Nationals voters: the Infrastructure Minister and the Agriculture Minister have buggered their own credibility. This is fine if you think Infrastructure and Agriculture policies don't matter.
5. The Treasurer, who is not out of favour with the PM, is looking to cut subsidies. The government as a whole is under no obligation to make Truss or Joyce look good. While these guys are deciding whether or not they'll retire, Infrastructure and Agriculture bureaucrats will have to start putting budget proposals together, not knowing who the relevant minister will be. Now tell me again what the point of the Nationals is, and why you think their vote will hold up.
6. Shenhua Coal have an approved mining permit to dig up much of the Liverpool Plains and affect the watercourses on the rest of it. The Liverpool Plains includes some of Australia's best farmland, and it's within Joyce's electorate. If Shenhua pulls out of the Liverpool Plains through sustained political pressure, Joyce will be a big winner in the local electorate - if not, he won't. Joyce's bargaining position is weakened rather than strengthened after his part in The Macfarlane Affair/ Maccagate.
7. Joyce tried to rope Scott Buchholz (from the electorate adjacent to Groom) into a Lib-Nat switch. Buchholz used to work for Joyce, but Joyce has made him look like a patsy. Like Macfarlane, Buchholz looks more like a Nat than a Lib anyway.
8. Turnbull's representative on the LNP executive was Peter Dutton. Had Macfarlane joined the Nats and been their candidate to displace a Liberal from Cabinet, Dutton would have been the Liberal displaced. Dutton is the weakest link in Turnbull's Cabinet (with the possible exception of Scott Morrison) and was, in effect, arguing for his own job. Macfarlane would have deserved the administrative clusterfuck and moral swamp that is Immigration.

The value of press gallery experience

Michelle Grattan, Paul Bongiorno and Laurie Oakes have all recounted Macfarlane's tale in traditional horse-race terms, as though it were disconnected from the Nationals-Turnbull relationship in 2009 or the coming Budget. Michael Gordon deserves special mention for a piece that is particularly vapid even by the low standards he sets.

Katharine Murphy has developed a strong reputation for describing game-playing across politics while being coy about the press gallery and its role in political manoeuvrings. Sure, Macfarlane is throwing a tantrum - but consider the role played by Murphy and her colleagues in building Macfarlane up as a "straight shooter", someone with unmatched largesse-shovelling skills, etc. She's been a sucker for the pantomime rustic routine, and now is piling onto the poor hapless bastard ... presumably so she can write another one of her hand-wringing pieces about piling onto poor hapless bastards. Murphy writing about cynicism in politics is like Abbott beating up Islamic extremism: be the problem you denounce, rinse and repeat.

Mark Kenny, the Official Bunny of this blog, proffered two gobbets of analysis on this matter:

Macfarlane's rejection has left his career in the wilderness - with only his credibility for company.

Snappy line, that.

But whatever is done with him, it is pretty clear his party backers are too. Done with him that is ... Now Macfarlane is hinting he might look at something in the resources sector after his stint as Australia's longest-serving minerals energy and resources minister.

The cynicism of such manoeuvring apparently knows no limit. Having failed to secure personal advancement through skulduggery, the risk is he could take the corporate knowledge of national service and deploy it for private corporate gain.

You can't look at something that isn't there. Macfarlane should know that by now.

In challenging times, the mining industry needs all the friends it can get in Canberra - why would they hire someone with no credibility? Former Labor minister Martin Ferguson would probably have better standing with the current minister, Josh Frydenberg, than Macfarlane could ever muster. Do you reckon Clive Palmer would want him involved with Queensland Nickel? You see the problem here, provided you aren't as shortsighted as Mark Kenny.

Nobody in the press gallery is prepared for a post-Joyce environment.

Plenty of journos out there will tell you political journalism doesn't - can't - get any better than those people.

Update 24 December: Tony Windsor's piece on Macfarlane a superior article to the one I had written, so I disavow the above to the extent that it departs from Windsor's analysis. As you can see I placed too much reliance on gallery interpretations (e.g. Macfarlane as turncoat). My post would have been improved with more of the dreary cynicism of which I am so regularly accused.

Two choices for the Liberals in Opposition

The Liberals have two choices, neither of which depend on Rudd or the vagaries of fate. They can stay focused on holding Rudd to his promises, while at the same time working out what theirs should be. Or, they can pretend that all they need to do is fine-tune the message a bit and they're fine. The latter is the most likely, but the great thing about pessimism is that surprises are usually pleasant.


1. Who hesitates is lost

Like Rudd, the Liberals should get to work as soon as possible if they want to get back into government.

That means the first twelve months will consist of clearing out dead wood:

• Bill Heffernan (NSW Libs will have to choose a replacement), crazy old man, law unto himself. Now that Howard's gone there'll be nobody to make excuses for you. Piss off back to your farm.


• Nick Minchin (SA Libs will have to choose a replacement), you've led the Liberal Party here and you can't lead it out, only deeper. Your tactical stupidity is on show in SA state politics and the country has suffered enough.


• Phillip Ruddock (byelection in Berowra NSW): you've done as much as you're ever going to do.


• David Hawker (byelection in Wannon Vic): you didn't contribute anything the last time the Liberals were on office, you've had your go as Speaker and now have your pension. Goodbye.


• Bronwyn Bishop (byelection Mackellar NSW): you've also done as much as you're ever going to do, but you haven't done much.


• Tony Abbott (byelection Warringah NSW): you'll only cause trouble. Any ditching of the sort of policies that saw the second-longest-serving Prime Minister to lose his seat will be over your dead body, so stop acting as a brake to reform and just go. Getting rid of you will also diminish David Clarke.


• Alex Somlyay (byelection Fairfax Q): who? Why? Make way for Mal Brough.


• Andrew Southcott (byelection Boothby SA): get rid of yourself or the voters will. You only get one Nicole Cornes, and the SA Libs should force you out if you won't go.


• Peter Slipper (byelection Fisher Q): you've done nothing, and there's plenty more in your future. The question is, does the Liberal Party in Queensland have as much future as you do?


• Alexander Downer (byelection Mayo SA): absurd and flatulent response the morning after, you'll only be an obstacle to change and change is what's needed.


• Wilson Tuckey (byelection O'Connor WA): as much of a joke as Heffernan.

Accidents waiting to happen: Michael Johnson, Alex Hawke.

By this point, Rudd will have stuffed up enough such that people will start listening to the Liberals again. They'll show that they have learned their lessons and are starting to think about solutions so as to chart a course different to and more appealling than Rudd's.

The rapid clean-out, fast recovery and discipline are characteristics of Australia's most successful opposition, that of the Whitlam Government. Whitlam's natural tendency was to hubris and the Liberal-Country opposition kept him on his toes. Whitlam's ministers (who were mostly old duffers like Frank Crean) knew that they had to lift their game. Three years after losing office, they won the biggest margin in Australia's history. Those who remember that time have gone, or (like Phillip Ruddock) have forgotten, so study up and apply what's relevant.

The Liberals should elect Turnbull bnecause he's most likely to do this. He may drive the party into a ditch but at least he'll do so at full clip and they won't feel a thing.


2. Where fools fear to tread

Alexander Downer's star turn on Insiders tries making the case for minimal change:

Ah, look, what’s the point of going back over the last 12 months, we can't relive that. It's all over. We just, I think for the Liberal Party, it won't be doing itself much of a favour by a constant retrospective.

The one election we will never fight again is the 2007 election. So we didn't win the election, so that's fair enough. We'll leave commentators to trawl over the entrails of the 2007 election, but I think the main thing for the Liberal Party so to look to the future, to try to win the 2010 election.

And the first thing the Liberal Party should do in order to win the 2010 election is get behind Peter Costello as the new leader of the Liberal Party, because I think he will be a very formidable Leader of the Opposition and I think he will very much get Kevin Rudd's measure. So I think that is the important thing for the Liberal Party to do, not think about whether we should have said this or we should've said that.

Even if you take out the bit about Costello, what you have there is a recipe for disaster. Two years of faffing, followed by glib attempts to bat away any criticism of John Howard and reassert the same basic message that got you belted the last time.

In Parliament, Labor have the measure of Tony Abbott. He'll try his tough-guy act on Liberals who know that they have to drop and distance themselves from some aspects of Howard, demonstrating that he's not part of the solution but the problem.

This is a recipe for atrophy and bloody-mindedness out of sheer boredom, which means that the Rudd Government will face no significant opposition. This faffing and denial has led the state oppositions to where they are today.

Decisions from the Coalition

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.

"I don’t much care where -" said Alice.

"Then it doesn’t matter which way you go," said the Cat.

"- so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Alice added as an explanation.

"Oh, you’re sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

- Lewis Carroll Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

The Federal Coalition starts 2012 on the horns of a number of policy dilemmas. In each of these there are good reasons for going one way or another, but in each of these decisions will have to be made and defended in such a way that makes them look like a credible alternative government. The Coalition is ill-equipped to make those decisions, and to stand by them, which will mean this year won't be one on which they'll look back with unalloyed fondness. There might be vicarious triumphs in the states, but federally this is a year where decisions get tougher the more they are delayed.

These decisions will mean that those hoping the Coalition would go another way will be disappointed. With a consistent framework to operate by and a tough hide, you can get past this disappointment and, if the disappointed are supporters, mumble vague promises of compensation at some later stage. Howard did this all the time and so does every successful political leader. Abbott, however, will put his seemingly random and lightweight decisions out there in the hope that people are impressed with:

• The sheer damn firmness to which he holds to his decisions, and the boldness with which he ascribes his decisions;
• The sneering with which he puts down alternatives not chosen - not so cutting that the opposition withers and dies, nor witty enough to leaven the disappointment;
• The sheer athleticism with which he backflips and pikes out of decisions which turn out later to hurt him; and
• The sincerity-veneer that he applies to foreseeable questions that, well, just because he changed his mind on [this] doesn't mean he'll do so on [that].

First, there's this dog's breakfast written up as a meaty offering. Australia needs both farms and coal seam gas. Australia needs foreign investment, in agriculture as well as other parts of the economy. But for me the real tragedy was this:

In an exclusive interview with the Herald, Mr Hockey identified the government's $36 billion national broadband network as the Coalition's big political target this year.

Mr Hockey also unveiled the Coalition's three-point economic plan for the year and a "strong, positive agenda", following a year in which the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, was criticised for being too negative.

Only an experienced press gallery journo could write those two paragraphs and fail to realise that the hopes for the latter were pretty much cancelled out by the reality of the former.

"I mean, it's multiples of anything that's ever been off-budget … it detracts from productivity," he said.

Much of World War II and the Snowy Mountains Scheme, to name two, were off-budget. The rollout of the national copper-wire telephone network in the 1950s failed to account for data transfer or for rental income from a Singaporean-owned competitor. Lift your eyes above the budget and speak for the nation!

In terms of 'detracting from productivity', the business case for NBN can be made simply by getting the club foot of Telstra off the nation's throat. All those retailers who bellyache about the internet (while, like Harvey Norman, selling people the means to get onto the internet and avoid lazy and bloated retailers like Harvey Norman) will be kicked into touch by the NBN. Fewer rentseekers - just imagine that, you can feel the surge in productivity already.

Mr Hockey vowed to increase accountability of the government's off-budget initiatives, including the broadband network, the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the planned National Dental Scheme.

That's the way to go positive: skimp on the halt, the lame, the snaggle-toothed, and create FUD about policies to rob them even of hope.

Workplace relations was the subject of an internal Liberal Party brawl in September when the former workplace relations minister Peter Reith urged Mr Abbott to make it a front-and-centre issue.

Mr Abbott ignored the call and ruled out a return to statutory individual contracts.

Well, that's that. Obviously the issue of how millions of Australians work and what they get in return is now settled for all time. Joe Hockey is a  former workplace relations minister; why does nobody ask him about WorkChoices and future options for regulating workplaces to ensure growing productivity?

There is a case to be made for a light touch IR system, like that of the Fraser Government. The Conciliation & Arbitration Commission and all that it represented reached its peak under Fraser. Having smashed the ALP at the ballot box and in Parliament, the softly-softly approach to what used to be known as industrial relations gave the President of the ACTU, Bob Hawke, a rails run as the Fraser Government's most potent political threat.

On the other hand, there's also a case to regulate the workplace relations system in a different way to the way it's regulated now. The clearer they are about that different way, the less vulnerable the Coalition will be to spectres of WorkChoices, or the one-two punch from the broader labour movement (such as it is).

Of course, fearless journalist Jacqueline Maley went in hard, didn't she? No, she changed the topic:

Mr Hockey revealed a review of foreign investment guidelines would be part of the Coalition's economic policy agenda.

Look over there! If there isn't a Walkley in that, I don't know what is (seriously, I don't).

A Senate inquiry chaired by the Liberal senator Bill Heffernan is also looking into the issue.

And isn't that the hallmark of political effectiveness. The Father of Agriculture in Northern Australia himself. The man who erased Michael Kirby from history. All piss and wind. Yes indeedy, if you're concerned about foreign investment in Australian agriculture, you can wait for the Heffernan Report into the issue or you can help yourself to a nice deep draught of fuck-all ahead of time and avoid the wait.

The real worry for the Coalition, though, is this:

Mr Hockey said "some" of the Coalition's policies would be submitted to the Parliamentary Budget Office for costing.

During the 2010 election campaign, the opposition refused to have its policies costed by Treasury, opting instead to have them assessed by a West Australian accountancy firm, WHK Horwath.

The accountants who completed the costings have since been found to have breached professional standards and were fined for misrepresenting the costings as an audit.

That's right, accounting/consulting firms: if the Federal Opposition approach you, run for the sake of your professional reputations. They will screw you and leave you in the dirt: don't work for these people. George Megalogenis was right when he said:

For those on the Coalition side with longer memories, the antagonism echoes the Whitlam era hostility towards Treasury in the 70s.

The Coalition should get over itself and learn to respect the economists.

The lesson of the Whitlam government is that whenever one side sees the bureaucracy as the enemy, it knows less about governing that it realises.

Quite so: you aren't ready for Treasury, you aren't ready for government. When Treasury does fall short (as it did over the mining tax) it made the mistake of getting ahead of the politicians rather than supporting them in making decisions; this doesn't mean that the best Treasury is one that's willing to play Horwath-style patsy to The Situation. The Coalition aren't ready for government until they can strike that balance between leading Treasury and working with it.

Then there's another longterm dilemma of governing this country, the car industry. There are lots of good arguments for an Australian vehicle manufacturing industry, but if you make them you're missing a big opportunity to cut expenditure. You can't really complain that Australia isn't embracing an innovative future while you're siphoning public funds to donate to US shareholders.

Yes, people are buying fewer Commodores and Falcons, but apparently there is this wonderful export industry for such vehicles which, though apparently luicrative, still requires handouts. I quite like this elegant proposal from Nicholas Gruen seeking to create a niche where there is currently only a rut. Not only would the Coalition would reject it out of hand, there is no evidence that it even entered their minds:

But the Coalition’s acting industry spokesman, Eric Abetz, said Australians “don’t mind some support from government”.

Great! Let's remember that the next time Eric whinges about Centrelink recipients, or Fair Work Australia cracking down on free market champions like Qantas.

And the man helping review the federal Coalition’s industry policy in the environment of a resources-driven high dollar, frontbencher Ian Macfarlane, also said Australia needed to retain a sophisticated manufacturing capability. But he would not be drawn on the issue of subsidies.

Let's leave aside the fact that this is a poor article. The only evidence of a "Lib split" on the issue are Liberals with the bulk (if not the whole) of their political careers behind them. Macfarlane and Abetz might think they're clever by holding an inquiry with the end result predetermined, but what's clever for them is not necessarily clever for the country, or indeed for the Liberal Party.

The Australian car industry is mostly locked up in the sort of electorates where Labor wins overwhelmingly and the Greens come second. The exceptions are two Federal electorates, Corangamite (Vic, on the fringes of Geelong) and Wakefield (SA, including Gawler and Elizabeth): both marginal Labor-held seats at the last two elections, eminently winnable by a resurgent Liberal Party.

There has been a great deal made of the "Howard battlers", blue-collar workers who vote Liberal rather than Labor. These tend to be people who are self-employed or who recognise that their employment is contingent on the business cycle generally and their bosses' ability to reel in business in particular. Those who cling to cradle-to-grave jobs from big corporates or government still vote Labor. There is no advantage for the Coalition in maintaining thousands of Labor voters in marginal electorates.

Then, there's the fact that the most powerful advocates for the Australian car industry are two unions who, as Crikey recently observed, so lack confidence in their own members that they don't rate them as an investment. Two of Labor's greatest mainstays: why are they even a consideration for the Coalition? This is the press release I'm waiting to see:

The Leader of the Opposition today announced that the Australian car industry no longer requires subsidies from public funds and will rely upon income from customers from hereon in, just like every other business does.

"And if Paul Howes and Dave Oliver don't like it, they can go and fuck themselves", he added.

There will be difficult decisions required for all of these issues, and it's part of getting ready for government that you can manage interest groups. There is a line between steadfastness of purpose and obstinacy, and Abbott is on the wrong side of this because he has no discernible principles on economics:

• He's trying to play an unconvincing double game on workplace relations. 
• He seems to think a farmers-vs-miners stoush can simply be settled in favour of farmers (well, until the next time Gina rattles her jewelry). 
• He really thinks that the rolling program of cash for cars is just something Australian politicians have to keep doing and put up with, like similar flare-ups over their own pay from time to time. 

There are difficult decisions to be made over the coming year, the quality of which put in doubt to related questions that some might like to think are already settled: do the Coalition understand the issues facing this country, and can they govern Australia?

Baseless

Tony Abbott won't become Prime Minister because his party in his own home state are focused on things other than making him Prime Minister. He lacks the clout to make them focus. He does not have any compensating clout elsewhere that might make up for this. His own party in his own home state is going to shirtfront him and there is nothing he can or will do about it.

The Liberal Party in NSW is focused on their winning state government. State government is a bit of a novelty for most NSW Liberals and much-missed by those who remember the Greiner-Fahey days. There are plenty of jobs for party hacks and plenty of issues for activists and fellow-travellers to get their teeth into.

Yeah yeah, there could be a federal election any minute, and with it a federal Coalition government, that's all very well - but the State Government is no small beer and it is right here and now.

The 1993 Federal election loss had come as a shock to NSW Liberals and the then Fahey Government was keen to ensure it did not suffer a similar fate. They had to choose a State Director to run administrative matters and to manage any state or federal campaigns that took place. The two candidates were former Liberal staffers, Tony Abbott and Barry O'Farrell; O'Farrell won because of his broader knowledge of campaigning and because he was not a rusted-on factional hack like Abbott. Abbott got a consolation prize with Australians for Constitutional Monarchy and entered Federal Parliament.

O'Farrell resigned as State Director in late 1994, when he won preselection for a seat in State Parliament at the 1995 election. The position was still vacant a few weeks later when his former boss, John Howard, became leader of the Federal Parliamentary Party.

Howard knew what home-ground advantage meant. He was up against fellow Sydneysider Paul Keating and was on his last chance to become Prime Minister: death or glory, and he was damned if he would let his final chance be blown by a bunch of factional pissants he didn't respect. Howard got the NSW factions together and told them that his quest to become PM was more important than their factional maneuverings (and they believed him). He forced through rule changes, he brought people into the NSW Division from interstate (e.g. Tony Nutt), cracked heads and eventually got bitter enemies singing from the same songsheet. He basically rebuilt the NSW Liberals from the ground up and factional spats went on ice.

The fact that the Fahey government lost office made things easier for Howard, and clearer for NSW Liberals. State Liberal governments across the nation found themselves starved of resources, shut out of funding and announcements, and generally pushed aside by the Howard federal government; at the time they and Liberal members generally didn't seem to mind.

Tony Abbott would have seen all this at close quarters. He could have built some credibility as an enforcer for Howard in NSW, just as Michael Corleone proved his worth to the Don and took over - but chose not to. David Marr wrote that Abbott still wonders why Howard didn't find a place for him in his first ministry.

Since then, Abbott has been party leader for three years: ample time to go through the Liberal Party like a dose of salts, top to bottom. He's done nothing. He wouldn't know where to start. It's too late now.

Those who think Malcolm Turnbull can just knock Abbott off because polls underestimate the sheer bloody-mindedness of the right. They would make his life hell, even worse than in 2009; and while a proud man like Turnbull would need to prove himself a team player, he wouldn't be anyone's front man. Turnbull would have to extract the concession that the price of his leadership is that he gets to clean out the Liberal Party as thoroughly as John Howard did in 1995. He has no chance of doing that before an election, but after a traumatic loss as 2013 is shaping up to be he might have a chance.

Abbott did learn the lesson about state governments, though. What he hasn't learned is how to make it happen:

• Whatever might be said about Ted Baillieu, he isn't going to give up being in government just because Tony Abbott might ask nicely;
• Barry O'Farrell quite likes being Premier of NSW and knows all the tricks that Howard played in stealing the oxygen from state governments - he has one thing in common with his enemies on the far right, he isn't going to give up anything for the sake of Tony Bloody Abbott;
• Campbell Newman just got his go and clearly quite likes it too, and in amongst all his difficulties does he have time to stick his neck out for the sake of Tony Bloody Abbott? If Abbott could help him be more popular, perhaps; but north of the Tweed they are both about as popular as Paul Gallen.
• Look, Colin Barnett is busy, OK? Piss off, eastern states sluggo man (even Howard found WA difficult).
• SA Liberals are engaged in leadership turmoil, and they'll thank you to stay out of it. Abbott isn't winning the party much support in that state and it is likely Labor will win seats there. He lacks the clout to go in and sort out the state mess and it wouldn't be to his advantage if he did. He could rely on his right-whinge factional buddies, but in SA their chief is Cory Bernardi - you see the problem.
• In Tasmania the state Liberals are resurgent because Will Hodgman has taken a stick to Eric Abetz and got him to stay out of state politics. Abetz is left with absolute control over the federal sphere and he doesn't need any help from Abbott. Both Abetz and Hodgman would regard Tony Bloody Abbott as more trouble than he is worth.

The part of the Liberal Party that should, in theory, be most focused on getting Abbott elected are the far right. They are even more committed to junking environmental controls and women's reproductive rights than Abbott is. They would have the Navy machine-gun asylum-seekers and have their corpses wash back on the coast of Indonesia to send a message that needs no translation.

Bernardi is their rising star, but while the right operates nationally let's go back to NSW for a moment. When the right get control of the NSW Liberals, they brook no dissent: disunity is death and all that. When they lose, they quite happily leak to the media, use violence to disrupt meetings and intimidate opponents, do backroom deals with religious/racist cranks, and take out Supreme Court injunctions.

If you must read a Paul Sheehan article, go straight down to about the second-last paragraph and read the almost inevitable "don't be fooled by claims that ..."; here will be the substance of the article and his motivation for writing it. To represent people like the secretive, schismatic and vicious David Clarke as agents of openness, fair play and democracy is pretty funny, and by the time you realise it isn't satire it is too late.

Any organisation shows people inside and out that you can't enjoy the benefits of that organisation without also submitting to its directions, and that sometimes those directions don't go the way you'd like. The right's patsies do not have the numbers to get Robertson FEC (the forum of Liberal Party branches in that federal electorate) to pass a motion of no-confidence in Lucy Wicks, nor bring any pressure to bear in internal party mechanisms to get their repellent mouth-breather candidates into positions beyond their competence. Instead, they want all the benefits of the Liberal Party's resources brought to bear for their benefit without any consideration.

It is too early to tell, but Labor MP Deb O'Neill will get the benefit of the doubt in Robertson at the next election if she shows up and puts the work in. Labor would be crazy to undermine O'Neill, but this possibility cannot be ruled out. Most Liberals in Robertson will get behind Liberal candidate Lucy Wicks but a good many will effectively go on strike - enough to make the difference in a tight contest. Supposedly loyal Liberals would rather see Labor's O'Neill beat endorsed Liberal Wicks in order to make a point in internal party machinations, rather than tolerate Wicks as their local MP.

If you place more credence in polls than I do, you have to believe that Robertson and neighbouring Dobell (current MP: Craig Thomson) are seats that the Liberals pretty much have in the bag.

Will that court injunction, and all that led up to it and all that will flow from it, do a single thing to help Tony Abbott become Prime Minister? It is leadership failure that it even came to this. John Howard would have jumped on such a nasty little exercise with both feet. Either Abbott stood by helplessly wringing his hands, or - worse - he assumed it was nothing to do with him.

The third instance of the NSW Liberals thumbing their nose at their federal leader came with the underreported Senate preselection last weekend.

Senate preselectors are drawn from the party's state executive and from electorates throughout the state. Few internal party ballots are so representative of the mood of the Division as a whole at the time they are cast. There were two winnable spots, and two sitting Senators seeking re-election to them.

Marise Payne has been a Senator for 15 years. She started out as a moderate before they went out of fashion and placed survival over principle. Like the Prime Minister, she is unmarried and childless (yes, I respect her choices too, but this stuff matters to conservatives). During the republic debate in the '90s she formed an odd pas-de-deux with Abbott in Liberal Party forums, arguing for a republic while he against. She would have made a good minister had Howard been in the business of promoting women and moderates (or if Costello had stepped up). She is kind of a shadow minister for portfolios that don't really have ministers, although the fact that she is on the front bench at all is further proof that Abbott is no Howard.

Arthur Sinodinos was Howard's chief of staff and spent many years putting Tony Abbott in his box. He replaced Helen Coonan. Abbott kept being told that his front bench was full of lightweights - Payne is a regular target for those with constructive suggestions as to who should make way for supposed Liberal talent - and conventional wisdom holds that Sinodinos would lend a policy heft to the Coalition which it apparently lacks.

The last time Coonan and Payne ran for preselection was in 2006. Howard wanted Coonan at the top of the ticket and tasked Bill Heffernan to do the grassroots work within the NSW Division to make it happen. Howard got his way, as you'd expect; Payne was furious with Heffernan, but so what?

Just before last weekend's NSW Senate preselection ballot, Tony Abbott made Sinodinos his parliamentary secretary. It was a clear exercise of leadership and authority. In Howard's day the NSW Liberals would have voted for a brown dog if Howard had made it his parliamentary secretary. Abbott had been the attack dog for Bronwyn Bishop when she nobbled shadow minister Chris Puplick in the vicious Senate preselection of 1989; Payne and Puplick have been close friends for years. The Liberal Party is all about leadership, and Abbott played what looked like a lay-down misére.

Last weekend the NSW Liberals put Payne at the top of the Senate ticket over Sinodinos.

The NSW Liberals are determined to fuck over Tony Abbott at every opportunity, and they know him better than anyone. You'd have to be a mug to vote for him, and I am sick to death of all this more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger crap that an Abbott government is inevitable. If the famously brutal Victorian ALP started shirtfronting Gillard in this manner, I might begin to entertain the idea that she might not be re-elected.

Turning to custard

The established narrative by the press gallery on the Gillard government is that it's hopeless, that everything it touches turns to custard. Over the past two weeks we've seen that narrative die. It's no longer useful as context or even as backdrop to the developments of the past fortnight. Facts that didn't fit the narrative were once ignored - until the facts got so big that they had to be reported.

Media Watch noted this, giving journalists the sort of light roasting that professional football players receive on their respective versions of The Footy Show. "It's easy to mock the journos", Holmes admitted, without conceding that it might ever be necessary. Jonathan Holmes skated past the frankly pathetic attempts by people like Michelle Grattan to insist that, despite all the evidence that the political game had changed, it was all actually the same and no matter what Gillard did, she was still done for. Read Grattan's opinion pieces between 27 February and 3 March to see her insistence that even though the facts had changed, the Gillard-as-incompetent narrative still floated above the fray, intact and unsullied. In particular, her piece last Friday on Carr not becoming Foreign Minister is a shower of nasty adjectives and adverbs.

The nearest Holmes got to any sort of admonition of those who seem to be obscuring the news rather than reporting it was showing Andrew Probyn from The West Australian bleating about "a reverse wedgie on the press gallery". It ain't all about you, fella.

What was interesting is how The Situation has been caught off guard. He looked gutted on the day the leadership vote was taken, insisting that Labor was divided when it had faced down one of its three major demons:

1. That Kevin Rudd was popular in the electorate and getting more so within caucus.
2. Notwithstanding 1. above, that there could be a "third man" for those who just can't abide Gillard (or possibly any woman leader really) and The Real Story for the coming year is to look for that "third man" (Smith? Shorten? Combet?)
3. Everything the government does is a stuff up.

The appointment of Carr as Foreign Minister negates the second, notwithstanding attempts by Grattan and others to talk up Carr as a leadership threat and - if not a perpetrator, then certainly a carrier - of "NSW Disease", a condition where a change of leader solves all political ills.

Let's look at the third of these: the idea that the government can and does do nothing right. What has happened is that it's done a workmanlike job with too many compromises, such that any achievements cannot be owned let alone celebrated. When things went wrong they were celebrated by the opposition, and highlighted against a beige background by a press gallery starved of attention, accustomed to being the gatekeepers between the public and the politicians. With Prime Minister Gillard setting a more decisive tone, and clearly revelling in her in-house victory, the idea of achievements going uncelebrated looks like being a thing of the past.

The last time this happened, on a small scale, was the passage of the carbon price. It was soon undone by the resentments of the reshuffle and the bland, hollow ALP conference, but note that there was a week or so when the focus was on policy and The Situation struggled for air. This is what's happening now, in a more protracted form.

Here is a matchup of the Cabinet vs the Shadow Cabinet. Who would you rather running the country government?

• Treasury: Wayne Swan vs Joe Hockey. Swan wins that matchup.
• Tertiary Education, Science, Research: Chris Evans vs Christopher Pyne. Evans, because he takes an interest in his portfolio.
  
• Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy: Stephen Conroy vs Malcolm Turnbull. Turnbull has had no success in overturning the dog's breakfast bequeathed to him by Tony Smith of all people, but perhaps he needs to prove to Libs that he's a team player. His needs, and those of the Liberal Party aren't the nation's problem, however, and however much of a prick Conroy is he gets the mail through. Conroy (through gritted teeth).
• Regional Australia, Regional Development, Local Government & Arts: Simon Crean vs Barnaby Joyce (Brandis in Arts). The old stager versus the populist yokel, and Barnaby too. Crean.
• Defence: Stephen Smith vs David Johnston. Smith is a doer and Johnston a windbag. Smith.
• Health: Tanya Plibersek vs Peter Dutton. Oh come on, Plibersek has achieved more than Dutton ever has or can, especially as the latter has gone to ground against the new minister. Plibersek for turning up.
• Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs: Jenny Macklin versus Kevin Andrews. Equally useless. Neither.
• Infrastructure and Transport: Anthony Albanese vs Warren Truss. A tie, first one to do something about Sydney Airport and the Pacific Highway wins.
• Finance and Deregulation: Penny Wong vs Andrew Robb. Wong is slightly sharper on the minutiae. Wong it is.
• Schools, Early Childhood and Youth: Peter Garrett vs Christopher Pyne. Nope, still Garrett.
• Attorney-General: Nicola Roxon vs George Brandis. Roxon.
• Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry: Joe Ludwig vs John Cobb. Indonesian cattle vs NZ apples. A tie.
• Sustainable Population, Communities, Environment and Water: Tony Burke vs Greg Hunt. There's much to be done in the Murray-Darling but at least Burke isn't still coasting by on his Honours thesis. Burke.
• Resources, Energy and Tourism: Martin Ferguson vs Ian Macfarlane. A tie, but I'd lean toward Macfarlane because he may not be out of ideas like Ferguson is.
• Immigration and Citizenship: Chris Bowen vs Scott Morrison. Incompetent vs a nasty little shit. Neither.
• Trade: Craig Emerson vs Julie Bishop. Substance vs the void. Emerson.
• Mental Health and Ageing: Mark Butler vs Peter Dutton. Butler does his homework. Butler.
• Minister for Innovation, Industry, Climate Change and Energy Efficiency: Greg Combet vs Sophie Mirabella and Greg Hunt. Oh please, Combet.
• Workplace Relations, Financial Services and Superannuation: Bill Shorten vs Eric Abetz & Matthias Cormann. Shorten does his homework, the other two do half-witted scare campaigns. Shorten.
• Foreign Affairs: Bob Carr vs Julie Bishop. Carr, without having spent a day on the job, deserves the benefit of the doubt.
• Small Business, Housing and Whatever: Brendan O'Connor vs Bruce Billson. A tie.

You see the Coalition's problem here.

When Gillard declared that she wasn't interested in foreign policy, Rudd got away with murder. His record as Foreign Minister is, as I've said, mixed. Gillard was right to get across it and form the basis of policy positions, from the relationship with the US to participation in the G20, to take charge of that policy area as much as any other.

By letting her team have their head now that Rudd has gone, Gillard is spreading the risk and showing that government isn't all about her, setting the tone and letting ministers get on with it more than Rudd was able to do. Gillard is as personally popular as the government is, and as the government has thrown its lot in with her and accepted her leadership, Gillard's authority over the government is clearer than Abbott's over the opposition.

The Coalition has a clear poll lead over the government and has for some time, but Abbott is about as popular as Gillard was before the leadership ballot. For the Coalition, the party is carrying the leader and not the other way around. In 1996 Howard was more popular than the part, meaning that candidates and party operatives were happy to accept his authority without public demur. In 2007 the same was true for Rudd over Labor, which is why Labor tossed out all those traditions like caucus electing the ministry etc. Because the party is carrying the leader, and not the other way around, they chafe under his directions and restrictions. If Gillard rises in reaction to events of the past fortnight while Abbott has no basis to do so, that chafing will start to get ugly.

Over the past week we've seen:

• Hockey pick a public fight with rural Libs and Nationals. Yes, he's championing the interests of urban consumers over rural producers, but the former won't thank him and the latter will only get resentful.
• Robb casting doubt over the one policy that might make Abbott slightly less repellent to female voters. He should be smarter than that. Nobody cares that the party room weren't consulted, only Labor gets all huffy about their caucus (but even they don't do that any more).
• Then there's this. I wish Heffernan had the presence of mind to round on Mirabella, after a dramatic pause, with: "Don't you speak to me like I'm your boyfriend". The whole party room would have laughed and it would have lightened the mood, which Mirabella would have destroyed by going berserk.

Tony Abbott went to the Thales plant at Bendigo yesterday and insisted that the government subsidise it. It almost certainly will, so Abbott will get no benefit from this stunt. The demographic movement of Victorians out of Melbourne to regional centres is a development much better dealt with by Labor than by the hapless Victorian Liberals. Abbott insisted that Thales was an Australian company and should get more subsidies than foreign manufacturers (i.e. vehicle manufacturers). Thales is no more - and no less - Australian than Ford or Toyota. Today was an example that the sharp edge his daily stunt once had has dulled, he looked flat-footed and put-upon. The Daily Stunt, like another of his key tactics, the Suspension of Standing Orders, has lost its power halfway through the term.

Another example where Abbott's leadership is diminished is with the deselection of Patrick Secker. It might not seem that significant but within the Liberal Party it's a bigger deal than you might imagine.

I lived in Adelaide in 1987, and for the first part of that year Patrick Secker was SA State President of the Young Liberals. When meetings of State Council got a bit rowdy he'd roll his eyes and berate the meeting like a starchy schoolmarm, grumbling that he was swearing off politics forever. At the time I nudged the guy next to me and suggested that if Patrick was going to carry on like that he should join the Democrats. Imagine my surprise when he became one of the few Liberals to enter Federal Parliament, rather than leave it, in 1998.

Imagine my lack of surprise that Secker ended up as one of those loser pollies not being able to raise campaign funds and employing his family on staff. The point is, though, he was Deputy Whip - not an exalted title I grant you, but one that shows loyalty to the leader above all else. If the Coalition were to catch the Gillard government napping and force a motion of no confidence, it would be Secker and the other whips who'd make that happen. Whatever nonsense dribbled out of Abbott's office, Secker and the other whips were responsible for making sure that all Liberal MPs followed it to the letter. Part of Secker's problem was that time not spent impressing his preselectors was spent carrying water for Abbott and Credlin.

To be fair to Abbott, he and Chris Pyne endorsed Secker in his preselection. The fact that this backing counted for nothing - Secker was trounced - is telling. It's fine for Abbott to claim that he can't be responsible for everything that happens in the Liberal Party, but there is no way something like that would have happened under Howard - not to a whip. Howard would have been aware if one of his team was on the nose in their local branches and would have intervened well before time to help stare down any threats. That's why Howard had the utmost loyalty from his team - he knew the Liberal Party inside out and backwards, in a way that Abbott doesn't. Abbott dances with who brung him, namely the right, and if they say that someone's on the outer then Abbott doesn't stand in their way.

All MPs and Senators spend time and effort shoring up their support base during no-sitting periods, but when they're far away in Canberra they feel remote from branch activities and therefore vulnerable. A leader can make them feel less vulnerable, particularly if that leader is more popular than the party and can lift someone by promising a local visit or some such. A leader who isn't popular is tolerated rather than embraced by backbenchers on their home turf. Patrick Secker has been humiliated and his leader didn't really stick his neck out for him, which will not have gone unnoticed among the more insecure Libs in his team. "New blood" is all very well but Secker has not been replaced by a superstar. Pyne's already inflated reputation as a political tactician has suffered by the downfall of Secker.

Someone like Peta Credlin doesn't understand this stuff at all and is of no use advising a leader on something so fundamental as loyalty and how branch-level politics percolates upward to national politics. John Howard didn't need anyone to advise him on that stuff.

Tony Abbott won't be destroyed by some mighty blow, but by lots of little trickles of the kind we are already seeing. Frontbenchers contradicting one another, painstakingly constructed countermeasures (like the paid parental leave scheme) treated like just another bargaining chip or not reviewed against developments (the government's scheme, while less than perfect, neutralises any poll advantage to the Coalition), silly spats like the Ryan-Heffernan-Mirabella thing - there is going to be more of this sort of stuff and Abbott won't be able to handle it. Because the small stuff will pile up he won't be able to do the big stuff like balancing farms vs CSG, or building a proper relationship with Indonesia. All the hot-button wording that usually stops the rot - Loyalty! Disunity is death! - simply won't work.

Abbott won't be able to go after Wayne Swan bagging the mining billionaires:

• He could take Swan on, but Swan and Labor want Abbott explicitly standing up for billionaires who want all that largesse for themselves. The unions covering the mining industry, the AWU and the CFMEU, haven't been that successful in recruiting members among those earning $300,000 a year; a class war is probably the only thing that will get their attention. Swan, an AWU man from way back, is only too happy to help.
• Abbott could join Swan in bagging the billionaires, albeit to a slightly lesser extent - but they are the difference between the Coalition having campaign funds next year and not. Besides, Abbott is all about stark differences with Labor, so when they say black he says white, not shades of grey.
• Abbott could ignore Swan, but that would make him look weak and disengaged, the opposite of the whole action-man thing.

To coin a phrase: settle in.

For the press gallery, we are at a point where the narrative will have to change to fit the facts, rather than the other way around. The press gallery cannot sleepwalk toward the 2013 election peddling the same non-stories caked onto the same tattered narrative like the lining of a long-neglected budgie cage. In the short term it will be fascinating to see who survives in the press gallery, and in the longer term it will be interesting to see the forms that political reporting takes.

Be quiet

John Howard can't help himself. He's been a political schemer all his life, and his faint-praise damnation of Brendan Nelson is symptomatic of his disloyalty to any Liberal leader other than himself. If Costello or Turnbull had become leader, Howard wouldn't have been any more gracious or encouraging.

Howard knows that quiet counsel is more likely to be acted on within the Liberal Party. Malcolm Fraser influenced nobody with his criticisms of Howard. No Liberals sought Fraser's advice as they'd get it publicly anyway. Besides, Howard, his office and lackeys like Minchin would - and do - crack a hissy fit if any Liberals even mention Fraser, let alone went near him.

None of those Liberal leaders who lost elections have been sought out. No Liberals sought McMahon's advice after 1972; only the far right of the NSW Liberals paid him any mind. Gorton listened to those exasperated with McMahon, but by Fraser's time the only Liberal seeking his advice would have been Don Chipp. Rarely was Menzies' advice sought during his twilight.

Howard couldn't have done more to discourage people from seeking his advice. He offered nothing that had not demonstrably failed in the 2007 election campaign, and did not talk about the past in a way that offered insights for the future. It was all bathwater, no baby. He only offered the Liberal Party the opportunity to shackle itself to proven failure, to look backward rather than forward, to hope that the Liberals might preserve an image of economic competence in aspic as the country changes to render their experience irrelevant.

It flatters Howard that Liberal MPs would call on him and wait upon the pearls that fall from his lips. And they will, unlike with previous leaders. You'll see it when a Liberal abruptly changes direction; an authentic proponent of higher immigration will abruptly become a snide dog-whistler - and after getting belted politically will admit that yes, he had sought advice from Mr Howard actually, how could you tell?

It's when Liberals stop calling on Howard that things will get interesting, clear proof that they've started thinking for themselves and addressing the issues of Australia in the twentyfirst century. They're a long way from where they need to be: Heffernan and Minchin are pillows over the face of an already prone party. Downer is an embarrassment, the first Howard government minister whose legacy has been utterly eclipsed if not erased. Abbott needs to go or be politically spayed. Howard has had his day and has no fresh ideas for the future, he told everyone so clearly and strongly last year and he's telling them again. The only ones who can't hear this don't want to listen.

Lord of misrule

The Right are in the ascendancy in the Liberal Party at the moment. So long as this remains the case, the Liberal Party will be unelectable. The leader who wrests power from them will lead the Liberal Party to victory over the ALP.

Twice this has happened in NSW:

• In the late 1970s, the Liberals fell into a slough of far-right despond - and yes, a far-right response is always an expression of despair rather than hope. Nick Greiner beat off the far-right within the Liberal Party while at the same time sticking it to a seemingly invincible Labor government. When Labor Premier Barrie Unsworth accused Greiner of being an apologist for Nazis, Greiner tore him a new one (not just because of his experience in the Liberal Party - Greiner had Jewish family members). The far right were weeded out of preselections and Greiner led the Liberals to a sizeable victory.
• In the middle of the last decade, the Liberals fell into a slough of far-right despond - and again, a far-right response is always an expression of despair rather than hope. Barry O'Farrell beat off the far-right within the Liberal Party while at the same time sticking it to a seemingly invincible Labor government. When successive Labor Premiers accused O'Farrell of being an apologist for David Clarke et al, again it was out of hope rather than a sober assessment of the state of the Liberal Party. The far right were almost-but-not-quite weeded out of preselections and O'Farrell led the Liberals to the biggest victory over Labor for a century.

It's best to avoid the cancer of the far-right ascendancy, but it's never best to ignore it when it reveals itself.

Paul Sheehan confuses change with progress:

The mood in the room was buoyant, but the guest of honour was subdued.

Quite so. It's like that point in Power Without Glory where John West looks around at the height of his power and realises that he's surrounded by idiots. Eric Abetz has achieved precisely nothing at a time when the wily manipulation of a minor vote could have seen the downfall of a major piece of legislation, a ministerial career, even the government itself. Cory Bernardi would be the truest of true believers left and will be phoning Minchin daily to receive riding orders. Apart from them there would only have been mouth-breathers like Concetta Fierravanti-Wells and Mitch Fifield, empty vessels who would be tailored to fit with whoever was their party's leader.

Minchin, by not deviating from his core beliefs despite enormous pressure to do so, had orchestrated the dramatic events that led to the end of Turnbull as Liberal leader and the shocking emergence of Tony Abbott as his replacement.

Yep - as long as Old Nick stays true to himself, bugger everyone else. The "events" Minchin orchestrated make a mockery of his claims of "treachery" about the party's Vice Presidents. Old Nick knows treachery when he sees it all right, but he squeals like a stuck pig when it's used against him.

[Minchin] also left Liberal Party politics behind, and he did so without a backward glance.

This is a lie. Minchin has nothing better to do - including care for his family - than become embroiled with who's doing what to whom within the Liberal Party.

As for Sheehan, he was the very sort of mindless drone of a reporter who would have been punted three rounds of Fairfax downsizings ago until he discovered his calling as chronicler of the far right. When what Gerard Henderson calls the "lunar right" overreached (Hanson and her lunges for public funding for elections, the CEC in thrall to American kooks LaRouche, racists, gun losers and tobacco-funded smokers' rights outfits) did Sheehan come back to the furthest right that is sustainable in Australian politics: the right-whinge of the Liberal Party.

Sheehan must have missed Heffernan's heckling of Minchin, which would have made him even more subdued. He also missed the statement by Old Nick that it's time for factionalism to come out of the closet:

Minchin had wanted to say something more controversial in his speech but refrained because he feared it would have been used as ammunition in the heated behind-the-scenes battle for the Liberal Party federal presidency, in which Minchin was intimately involved. He was the numbers man for Alan Stockdale, who on Saturday staved off a challenge by Peter Reith.

Fear is a big part of Old Nick's approach to politics. Minchin's first speech has a few digs at Keating's pigs but otherwise spends all its time bagging Hewson for sticking his neck out over actual policies like tax reform. Nick Minchin was not some lion of conservatism, he was frightened and clueless:

• For factional reasons, Minchin directed the Liberals to run dead in South Australia in the 1990 and 1993 federal elections.
• SA Libs only won the state election in 1992 because Labor had absolutely collapsed: Howard hated Liberal state governments because they directed attention and resources away from him. Minchin engineered the Rudd-like removal of a popular first-term Premier and replaced him with a muppet who duly lost office.
• The last refuge of the weak and clueless politician is to call for bipartisanship, as Minchin did over tax reform: Howard brought about the GST in the face of Labor's most committed opposition and over the dead body of the Democrats.
• Minchin's most substantial reform was to privatise Telstra exactly as Labor wanted, leaving it as a bloated monopoly with all the arrogance of a large corporation and all the complacency of a bureaucratic monopolist.
• Minchin was too scared to tell Howard it was time for him to go in 2006.
• Minchin was too scared to tell Howard WorkChoices was a bad idea (Peter Reith wasn't in Parliament then).
• Minchin could not, for all his factional manoeuvering, get the Liberal Party to state openly that it goes in for all that Ayn Rand crap that environmentalism is just a front for socialism; that you can be in favour of capitalism and consume its products, or you can have a concern for the environment, but not both.
• What he did succeed in doing, however, was getting muppets like Mitch Fifield and Tony Smith to quit the frontbench to undermine Turnbull's negotiations for an emissions trading scheme. He succeeded in making like miserable for Senators with more guts than he ever had (e.g. Sue Boyce and Judith Troeth).
• When Tony Abbott knew that he would be asked questions about industrial relations in last year's elections, Minchin told him to faff, and he did. The Liberal campaign stalled and doubts about Abbott calcified, leading not to a victory but the kind of non-result that frustrates the hell out of Liberals and simply confuses the cattle in the press gallery.
• When Abbott wanted to be flexible in negotiating with independents, Minchin held him back. He remains convinced that independent MHRs can be won over in the way that Senators can be bullied and bamboozled, but the result has been that indepedents regard the very idea of supportng Abbott as like turkeys voting for Christmas.

How this timid man got a reputation for toughness is unclear. Coorey continues:

Otherwise, he would have used his valedictory speech to repeat a long-held view that the Liberal Party should follow Labor and formally adopt factions.

While the moderate and conservative wings of the Liberal Party are often referred to as factions, they are more like personality cults. Minchin, who has been the leading conservative for so many years, believes this to be cancerous because of the personal nature of disputes that erupt.

Formalised factional groupings would enable disputes to be based on ideology rather than personality.

"The Liberal Party should recognise that in an organisation like ours, there are going to be groupings of one sort or another," Minchin told this writer. "We should acknowledge the reality of essentially having a conservative wing and a moderate wing."

There has long been resistance in the Liberal Party to the concept because Liberal philosophy places a premium on individualism. But Minchin has allies, especially on the right.

Especially? Don't you mean exclusively?

Things have come a long way since I was a member. Back then it was the moderates who were well organised in NSW and SA, with enough sway in the other states to pull off the occasional win. The right-whinge denied there was any such thing as factions in the Liberal Party - Bronwyn Bishop denied it so often it became a punchline - they cursed the moderates because they were so damn effective at it, and denied they would ever stoop to it. Now, because the moderates have gone (quiet, or left the party altogether - same thing really) he can finally come out and admit to being the factional hack he always was.

Minchin acknowledges factions have a bad name because of the way they have been abused at times within the ALP, but overall they are a beneficial system for settling policy disputes, communicating backbench sentiment to the leader, and even easing pressure on the leader.

When moderate liberals stood up to Howard over refugees, nobody was more critical than Minchin. He didn't respect their opinions, even though they were very careful to keep it in-house (which Minchin never does when the boot's on the other foot).

"Our party has a problem because it was built around Menzies and it's terribly and unduly leader-oriented," he said. "Leaders do not like structures like this; they want all the authority ... [But] factions can be a check on their egos and abuse of power."

In the case of the right-whinge, factionalism is destructive only. It was a check on Turnbull and the ETS all right, and it has been a prophylactic to all substantial policy development in the Liberal Party since. Nothing has come from the right whinge, and nothing can. Even something so wonkishly non-political like alternatives to the NBN or significant investments in defence force hardware is berated by the right as going against the Legacy of Old Nick (such as it is).

''Howard saw everything I did through the prism of factionalism and every action and statement as the produce of my conservative factional base," Minchin said. ''My views were often discounted as a result.''

This frustrated Minchin because, he said, his advice to Howard was motivated always by what he thought was good politically for the government, rather than being factionally driven.

By having formalised factions, such misunderstanding would have been eliminated.

That is so stupid it does not make sense. Howard discounted Minchin because he was a factional hack and if factionalism were formalised, he wouldn't have been discounted? Stuff that. More likely, Minchin pooh-poohed every idea Howard ever had so that when Minchin blubbered that it was all too hard and wanted to slink back to Adelaide and do nothing with his life, Howard chose damn-the-torpedoes-and-full-steam-ahead.

It takes a complete ignorance of politics to classify Peter Reith as a moderate: I'm surprised he hasn't sued the lazier members of the press gallery who've described him thus. It is fair to say, however, that Reith was tough enough to take the rough-and-tumble of political debate and that he did not shut up when Minchin got all jittery about Controversy. Every time Reith opened his mouth you can imagine Minchin wringing his hands and fretting and taking soundings from his buddies in the ALP who told him what his attitude should be. The ructions of this week over the Liberal Presidency go way back: as a conservative leader, Minchin could handle a moribund pensioner like Alan Stockdale, but not the bumptious Reith.

The fact that Tony Abbott felt that he'd "better" vote for Stockdale and wave his vote around like some gutless Paul Howes acolyte shows that he's not the guy to rise above the factionalism that got him where he is. I'm trying to remember the last Opposition Leader who was in thrall to his own chief of staff and her husband. Showing your vote is the sort of thing that happens in nakedly factional organisations: as personal behaviour within the polite circles of the Liberal Party goes, it's about as indecent as dropping your pants. It shows why Minchin's factionalism dream just won't fly, and the idea of a closed inner-party will only repel prospective members. Even Niki Savva made the startling admission that Abbott can't make the transition from stuntman to statesman.

Eventually, the Liberal Party will grow deeply weary of opposition. They will start to come up with concrete alternative ideas to those being put by the Labor government, and will tire of the insistence of happy-little-Minchinites that no policy is good policy. They may even come up with ideas that appeal to those who have voted Liberal in the past and are open to doing so again; people who today are appalled at Tony Abbott and want him well away from the levers of government.

First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.

- Mohandas K. Gandhi, who never voted Liberal in his life

Yeah, but first you've got to get something for which to fight. Then you have to learn how to fight.

Some good people will cop it in the neck during the dark times of the right-whinge ascendancy, but eventually there will be some Liberals will stand up and say enough. That battle is not yet joined, however. Turnbull lacks the organisational nous and the patience to hunt down Minchinites and root them out. Joe Hockey has both those qualities but too few others to win a drawn-out battle and drag the party to government. It won't even begin until the Liberals lose the next election (and I don't care what today's polls say, they will).

Clearing the dead wood

The Prime Minister's announcement that Nova Peris would contest the Senate seat in the Northern Territory currently held by Trish Crossin has unleashed much outrage from those who never voted for Crossin, or rated her as much of a threat to those they did vote for; you'd think Crossin is the Demosthenes of Darwin, or that Gillard is the first politician to knife those who took up space without performing.

Let's not waste time raking over history and who did what to whom. Let us leave for another time the merits or otherwise of candidates not yet in Parliament, or punditry about who will/won't win.

Instead, let us catalogue the dead wood in the Australian parliament today, people who can and should be removed by those responsible for such matters (including, but not limited to, the voters) in the lead-up to the coming election. Young MPs deserve the benefit of the doubt, up to a point. To nominate those who aren't contesting the next election as 'dead wood' is redundant; I have not included Craig Thomson, who, if vindicated, deserves as much of a political future as anyone in Parliament. Here are the MPs and Senator who should be placed on the front verge for collection by either the great grinding rubbish-trucks of state, or by random opportunists who could make better use of them:

Labor

• Anthony Byrne
• Jacinta Collins
• Doug Cameron
• Yvette D'Ath
• David Feeney
• Laurie Ferguson
• Joel Fitzgibbon
• Mark Furner
• Alex Gallacher
• Chris Hayes
• Harry Jenkins (retiring)
• Joe Ludwig
• Jenny Macklin (oh all right, but straight after NDIS)
• Gavin Marshall
• Robert McClelland
• Claire Moore (see comment below)
• John Murphy
• Helen Polley
• Michelle Rowland
• Mike Symon
• Matt Thistlethwaite
• Lin Thorp
• Anne Urquhart
• Maria Vamvakinou

Liberal

• Eric Abetz
• Kevin Andrews
• Chris Back 
• Cory Bernardi
• Julie Bishop
• Bronwyn Bishop
• George Brandisandbrettmason (often assumed to be two separate people)
• David Bushby
• Michaelia Cash
• Peter Dutton
• Sean Edwards
• Concetta Fierravanti-Wells
• Mitch Fifield
• Teresa Gambaro
• Barry Haase
• Bill Heffernan
• Gary Humphries
• Greg Hunt
• Dennis Jensen
• Craig Kelly
• Helen Kroger
• Andrew Laming
• Ian Macdonald
• Sophie Mirabella
• Stephen Parry
• Chris Pyne
• Don Randall
• Rowan Ramsey
• Michael Ronaldson
• Philip Ruddock
• Scott Ryan
• Dean Smith (see comment below)
• Tony Smith
• Alex Somlyay
• Andrew Southcott
• Ross Vasta

Nationals

• Ron Boswell (retiring)
• George Christensen
• John Cobb
• John Forrest
• Luke Hartsuyker
• Paul Neville (retiring)
• Ken O'Dowd
• Bruce Scott
• Nigel Scullion
• Warren Truss
• John Williams

Greens

• Lee Rhiannon

All of those people have had their go, and more of a go than most get.

It is eminently possible that any of those people could be replaced by someone worse: this is not a reason for retaining them in Parliament. The above includes many who are regarded as rising stars in their respective party (Josh Frydenberg is not on this list, even though he is a waste of skin; the Victorian Liberals need to work him through their system, as they have with Smith, Mirabella and Hunt). The list excludes a number of Last Chance Larrys/Lisas, who may yet distinguish themselves this side of 2016.

The party committed to getting rid of its dead wood can truly demonstrate a commitment to our nation's future.

Sold down the river

There are basically two factions in the Nationals. In NSW they used to talk about a North of the State vs South of the State, or west of the Great Divide versus the North Coasters - but now the battle for the Nationals is joined and, appropriately, it is a national one.

One faction is the Coalitionists, the genteel duffers who have led the party to steady decline but have secured quiet backroom influence with Liberals when in government, when they are disposed to listen. From Doug Anthony through the de-clawed Ian Sinclair to that wombat-in-headlights Mark Vaile, the Coalitionists have been in the ascendancy through sheer weight of patronage ... when the Liberals can carry them into government, that is.

The other faction is the Barnaby faction, the bomb-throwers who think the best way to get loot for their constituencies is to distance themselves from the Liberals and cut the best deal going with whichever major party is most desperate for office.

Given the fact that the Liberal Party does not have the lock on power that it did in the thirty years or so following 1949, it is the latter who have the momentum with them. In South Australia Karlene Maywald has ensured that the country's driest state never goes thirsty again snagged herself a possie in Cabinet, the Labor government falls over itself to help her constituency. In WA, the Nats have ensured that the fruits of the minerals boom are put to good use at least secured a promise that the school might get a lick of paint or that a road from nowhere to nowhere else might become the sort of superhighway that people in the eastern states might visit on their holidays.

The Federal Nats have become as irrelevant to the Liberals as their own moderates are. The Coalitionists in their ranks just want to sit around and lose seats - possibly including that of their own leader, Warren Truss - to the ALP or the independents. On the other hand, Truss and the other Coalitionists would hope to position themselves in order to get back on the gravy train if when the next Coalition government comes around and ride it until that government loses office. The Barnabyites, on the other hand, want to be the brokers of government for the major parties - in the event of a tight race, the major party that concedes most to the Nats wins government of the country.

Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott and Bob Katter are honorary Barnabyites (whether they know it or not) and loathe the Coalitionists. If Barnabyites take over the Nationals they may be enticed back, particularly if there is a tight race between Labor and the Libs.

Not that this is an issue at the moment. Even Blind Dennis can see the Libs are not an alternative government. This is mainly because they are policy-lazy, not offering an alternative and hiding such plans as they do have like a dowager vouchsafing her modesty. In a party where Tony Abbott is considered an intellectual and Nick Minchin a master tactician, sharp and fresh thinking on Australia today and the policies that might best serve it is too much to expect. Nonetheless, the Liberals will eventually get sick of losing and will toss some of the holdovers from Howard that are a little too precious at this stage, a little too raw this soon after defeat; they won't let Turnbull do that, not now, not yet, and if he pushes it they'll turn on him.

Labor will welcome a decoupled Nationals with open arms, particularly if they split the LNP and return Anna Bligh in Queensland (along with the poster boy for born-to-rule ALP apparatchiks, Andrew Fraser) as seems likely. NSW, Victoria and SA Labor are old hands at managing the Nationals, and if Chris Evans starts consulting some of Labor's experienced Nat-wranglers on Senate tactics, it will be Minchin who'll be a foregone conclusion. Rudd can do that boy-from-Eumundi stuff to build bridges with the Nats better than Turnbull ever could.

At the next election the Nationals will appear refreshed and vigorous by comparison with all those braying kill-the-Nats Liberals like Heffernan or Alby Schultz. Crusties like them aren't the future of anything, and won't win seats from a reinvigorated Nat-Labor alliance. However, they won't accept any blame - that will go to Turnbull, who is done for if he lets the Coalition fall apart. The Liberal Party held its breath when it shackled itself to that monstrous ego, but if he seeks to take the Liberals too far into unknown territory they will not go with him.

Malcolm Turnbull has to demonstrate that he can win seats in the bush, but not to the point where he threatens the Nationals. Turnbull has to paint the big picture on Australia's economic future, while including the rustics as a community-service obligation. Turnbull has to manifest an appeal that will win the Liberals a clear majority of seats in their own right, obviating an looming ALP-Nationals alliance, something that has happened only a few times in living memory and which looks highly unlikely for 2010.

The sole issue on which the Nationals, and the Coalition, will live or die is on water flow into the Darling River. Barnaby Joyce is of one mind with the large-scale irrigators of southern Queensland, and is happy to ignore those rural Australians down-river from St George. If Labor are too, the Nationals will deal with them - but any hope for the Murray-Darling basin will die, and on Rudd's watch, for the most despicably craven political reasons.

The Nationals' worst-case scenario is if they do a deal with Labor, only for them to tank and for Malcolm Turnbull to become the first Liberal Prime Minister since Joseph Cook who doesn't need or want a Coalition with the bushies.

In the red room

(This column comes to you after reading too much of The Australian and Paul Sheehan, and listening to more Angry Twerps on Radio than is wise.)

Here at the Politically Homeless Institute, we name the fifth column that is infesting the Liberal Party, a bunch of saboteurs whose every word and deed seems to entrench Labor and the Greens forever!

You know who I'm talking about. That bunch of recalcitrants just seem to drain every skerrick of credibility from the Liberals and Nationals as a potential government.

The Senators.

You may think Senators are harmless enough, beavering away at their committees and so on, but oh no - they clearly have it in for Tony Abbott and are doing all they can to stop him from becoming Prime Minister. Some may say they are doing more than Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan put together to this end.

Consider the evidence:

• Barnaby Joyce. Enough said? Perhaps. You may as well do vox-pops in the street as ask Senator Joyce about matters of high public expenditure. Those smart-alec journalists posing questions about seasonally-adjusted percentages, Barnaby charges through like a bull in a china-shop, and the china-shop owner is made to look stupid for hosting the bull in the first place. The very idea that this man is a byelection from becoming a minister must fill public servants in Canberra with utter dread.


• David Bushby. His catty remark to Penny Wong was flung straight back into his face.


• Mary Jo Fisher. All I can say is, it's astounding ...


• Cory Bernardi. Democracy disgusts him.


• Mitch Fifield. Euthanased a Liberal MP in a marginal seat in a state where Liberals are few and getting fewer, at an election which might have been one for the Liberals had that MP kept his seat. Top effort, Mitch!


• Russell Trood. The only Liberal who knows anything about foreign policy, and they're getting rid of him. By contrast, Ron Boswell has been there since Labor split and he's learnt bugger-all about anything.


• Michael Ronaldson. Failed in the House of Reps.


• No Liberal seats at all in the Reps, not even in a tight election - but my goodness, don't the Tasmanian Libs stack the Senate with some talent!


• Same with the Vics - Costello is gone, so the Senate has become a retirement home for his former staff who couldn't cut it in the House or not nasty enough for The Australian.


• Gary Humphries. Only has to win one of two seats, and barely manages to do that (too early to put him on deathwatch?).


• George Brandis. As smug as Turnbull or Costello but without a single achievement to sustain him in the stratosphere in which his ego cruises.


• Bill Heffernan, Eric Abetz, Matthias Cormann - take your pick.

The Senate is meant to be the House of Review, but these clowns make it a House of Revue. One of them is even called Wacka.

In a tight parliament they have not stopped, or even slowed down, one single piece of legislation. Not one. All they do is look "mean and tricky" at committees where they are rude to public servants (who increasingly give their own back). Eric Abetz must be the most useless Senate Leader of any party since Federation. He has nothing, nothing to show for his efforts but Godwin bloody Grech.

You almost feel sorry for Tony Abbott in dealing with such people, but he has a lucky break: we are into the final month for six of them, and next month they get two newbies! Fresh blood ... well, they are both from South Australia: one of them is from the most famous families in Dusttown or wherever, and the other one is another retread from the Reps who's been unable to get a job since 2007 in a boom economy.

Coalition Senators. Listen to them bleat about Labor spending $11.79 on whatever, and wonder whether any one of them would be worth the price of their food.

Not one of them came to this country on a boat.