Reading today’s media coverage of the Aussie Liberal-party backroom coup that ousted Tony Abbott and made Malcolm Turnbull prime minister makes it clear what happened. It was an old-fashioned establishment coup. Corporate Australia is delighted; they can work with Turnbull. So is the media. Commentaries and editorials by and large welcomed the change (for which many had campaigned) as a restoration of political normality. The Australian newspaper today solemnly instructed Abbott loyalists that their opponents were in the Labor party, not on their own benches — though the day before both right and left papers had been working with Turnbull loyalists to undermine Abbott. Various Liberal-party elders arrived on television and expressed sober relief at the result.
It reminded me of nothing so much as the start of the George H.W. Bush administration when word came down from the Washington Post that “the adults” were now back in charge after the adolescent fantasies of the Reagan White House. That argument faded somewhat in the summer of 1989 when one of Reagan’s adolescent fantasies actually happened: the Iron Curtain fell. For a while, though, the common wisdom around town was that government was, mercifully, once again in more responsible and prudent hands.
On this occasion down under, though, another point of view has emerged that rejects such common wisdom in often bitter and angry words. Letters to the editor in the Australian have denounced the coup as shameful, treacherous, a denial of democracy, and much else. People writing in say they will never vote Liberal again. Others call for the coup plotters, named, to suffer at the polls. I’m told that telephone and Internet messages to the Liberal party’s HQ were running at well over the rate of 90 percent for Abbott and against the coup, both before and after the vote. Writers make three points in particular: They think Turnbull’s win means a turn to the Left, which they don’t want; they are offended because the plotters deliberately undermined their own party government in order to seize the leadership; and they genuinely dislike having their country’s government being compared to those of Italy and Iraq for instability — writing such messages as “Are we mad?” and “We’re as bad as Labor.”
One observer who treats this reaction as a serious matter that must be dealt with is Malcolm Turnbull himself. I’ve written about this in Australian Financial Review:
He knows the maxim that divided parties don’t win elections and he also knows that even in Canberra, 45 percent of his parliamentary colleagues voted against him. He’s thus set out to disarm these internal critics in several ways. He gave the National party (the Liberals’ coalition partner) a better deal to keep the partnership going. He’s announced that he will not change various Abbott policies he had previously criticized or opposed outright — notably, his repeal of Labor’s carbon tax and his putting same-sex marriage to a national plebiscite. And he’s keeping some Abbott loyalists in ministerial positions. These moves will have some effect in damping down rebellion by Liberal parliamentarians. Almost as effective, however, will be Abbott’s dignified assurance that he won’t seek revenge or run a campaign of sniping against a Turnbull ministry.
None of this will seriously calm down the Liberal party’s rank and file throughout the country, however. Their discontent will have to be soothed and their support will have to be regained. And it won’t be an easy task for Turnbull. As I wrote in my Australian Financial Review piece:
After all, Abbott led the Liberals back into power. Until Turnbull equals or improves on that performance, he will be on probation. And the more decently Abbott behaves towards the usurper regime, the more he will become a figure of stoic nobility to the party faithful. (And not only to them. Even some media figures are starting to look guiltily embarrassed; but that will pass.)
Almost the only way Turnbull can solve that conundrum is to outperform Abbott in governing the country — winning legitimacy through success. Most of the establishment media commentary takes it for granted that Turnbull — who is undoubtedly an able man — can do this without straining. But that’s because they have been persuaded by their own commentary that Australia has been badly governed in the last two years. But that’s transparently false:
On the major issues, however, the Abbott government stopped the boats, repealed carbon and mining taxes, reached free trade agreements with Japan, South Korea, and China, and achieved a two percent growth in jobs in the face of difficult international trends, in particular Chinese instability.
Turnbull would probably not have stopped the boats or repealed the carbon tax in the first place. Now he proposes no change in those policies that have conveniently removed two massive obstacles from his path.
But the central budgetary problem—how to make necessary cuts in government spending without alienating key constituencies or penalizing less fortunate voters or meeting strong opposition from labour unions—remains as thorny as ever. Will Turnbull outperform the Abbott government on that? Can he?
There is a persistent myth in moderate conservative circles that major social and economic reforms that require abolishing restrictive practices or removing economic rents from powerful social groups can be achieved without serious conflict. What is required is consultation, reasonableness, a willingness to compromise, a change of “tone.” That was the fall-back case that the “Wets” mounted, mainly in retrospect, against Margaret Thatcher after her victories: what she wanted was fine but she went the wrong way about it.
This is self-deception. Powerful groups don’t surrender their privileges (which they usually consider justified) without a fight. Turnbull knows that he will have to have that fight, maybe in the run-up to the election. He may well calculate that his socially progressive image will help him to win it with public opinion. But he will also need the united support of his own party against a Labor party fighting hard for the status quo of welfare and regulation.
And, of course, he hasn’t got that.