Rebel numbers swell: Carbon emissions poised to bring Turnbull down a second time

An imminent train wreck that has been coming a long time…

by Simon Benson, Dennis Shanahan, Joe Kelly, The Australian

The leadership crisis engulfing Malcolm Turnbull has deepened, with cabinet ministers privately accusing the Prime Minister of cobbling together his plan to cap retail power prices in a last-minute bid to save his leadership.

The Australian is aware that a number of MPs called Home ­Affairs Minister and leading Queensland conservative Peter Dutton at the weekend to pledge support should he seek to challenge Mr Turnbull.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott told a Tasman­ian Young Liberals meeting at the weekend he was looking forward to serving under a “Dutton government”.

Simon Benson, National Affairs Editor, The Australian, says the word is that the challenge is “inevitable”.

Malcolm Turnbull is in full capitulation mode. In the face of a possible and increasingly likely challenge, he has buckled to rebel MPs, and in the process surrendered the future of his leadership to the demands of a few.

It’s not the demands of a few, it’s the preference of about 4.8 million voters. Let’s do a plebescite?

A defining moment has arrived for a decision between two competing ideas. Does the Liberal Party return to the conservative values that have provided the ballast for its most successful periods in government, aligned with a centre-right orthodoxy, or does it continue with the moderate, centrist experiment? At the heart of it are two interpretations of the Menzies era. Turnbull has argued that the founder of the modern Liberal Party was a moderate. Conservatives violently disagree. They are forced to this crossroad largely through human folly.

What centrist? Since when was mass taxation to change the weather a centrist experiment? Since when did centrists control almost every aspect of the market, supply, demand, the product, the price, and call it “free”?

Four prime ministers look set to be taken down in their first term. The real problem is that the nation is bullied into not discussing big ideas, like the plan to stop storms with our electricity generators (and there are other sacred cows too). Politicians are trying to foist a fantasy plan on the masses. The masses are not happy.

Get your popcorn. The ABC and Fairfax (or what’s left of it) will be slapped by reality again.

The ABC tonight has the insipid: “Turnbull plans more energy policy changes amid internal pressure‘

While The Australian was talking to key players, the ABC are quoting twitter and interviewing the opposition and the Greens.

Along with that non-event, at the top of the ABC-politics page is the classic Lara Tingle Analysis “Abbott’s Influence waning within Coalition”.

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