Bennelong MP John Alexander says five years of being a team player and keeping his gripes in-house have got him nowhere. His burning issue is housing affordability.
So often we hear the same bleating refrain, “Where are the moderate Muslims?” After the past fortnight, the answer is apparent. You just threw her, and every other Australian Muslim, in the water.
Political attacks often thrill partisans but appear puerile to innocent bystanders. They reinforce the impression that the politicians are more interested in themselves than voters’ concerns.
Moderates in the Liberals are breathing a sigh of relief that Bernardi will no longer harangue them with his strident views. “Party room meetings will be half an hour shorter now,” said one MP.
I grew up with the conviction that activists observed a problem, collected evidence, worked out a strategy, explained it, sought reactions, addressed objections or criticisms, corrected errors, then sought to act.
When asked why he wouldn’t reveal how much he had given, Turnbull’s answer was as opaque as it was shifty. On Channel Nine, Laurie Oakes accused him of ‘looking like a hypocrite’.
Of all world leaders, Goldman Sachs’ former Australian chief, Malcolm Turnbull, is arguably the most fluent in Trump’s newly restocked swamp’s language – the language of the deal.
Turnbull isn’t convincing on the so-called bread-and-butter issues. And there is growing pessimism that it is already too late for him to turn that around.
Australia has more divested institutions per capita than any other developed country, and is second only in number of fossil-free divestments to the US.