Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Aussie climate skeptic Prime Minister Tony Abbott has been defeated in a snap party ballot. The new Australian Prime Minister will be Malcolm Turnbull, who supports carbon pricing and emissions trading
According to the Sydney Morning Herald;
Malcolm Turnbull will become Australia’s 29th prime minister after beating Tony Abbott in a dramatic leadership ballot in Canberra on Monday night.
Mr Turnbull’s victory is reminiscent of the coup former prime minister Julia Gillard staged against Kevin Rudd in 2010 and makes the former communications minister Australia’s fifth prime minister in just over five years.
Liberal MPs gathered at Parliament House at 9.15pm to decide whether Mr Abbott or Mr Turnbull would lead them to the next election.
The challenge has plunged the Coalition government into crisis. Ahead of the ballot, both camps were confident of having the numbers but chief whip Scott Buccholz announced Mr Turnbull had prevailed over Mr Abbott 54-44. One Liberal voted informally and another was absent.
The crisis has provoked significant turmoil in Australian politics. Abbott defeated Turnbull while the Liberal Party was still in opposition, in 2009, over Turnbull’s support for a bi-partisan carbon deal. Malcolm Turnbull’s challenge seems to have re-awakened many of the old internal divisions within the party.
Turnbull is deeply unpopular with some factions of his own political party – some senior members of the party making no secret about how they feel about the new leader. Given the circumstances of the challenge, and the accusations of disloyalty leading up to the challenge, uniting the party under the new leadership is likely to prove a significant challenge.
UPDATE – We now have footage from the Liberal Party meeting which ousted Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
Australians are “subjects” not “citizens.”
It pay to remember this.
Unless we fight this, America be become the same way. It’s headed that direction right now.
Whatever might be the case in practice, legally Australians and most other “subjects” of the British crown became “citizens” in 1983, under the British Nationality Act of 1981.
Only to be replaced by UN and Brussels oversight
Canada is about to do the same thing :-/
PC minority with NDP opposition. Balanced budget, lower taxes for small business, reduction in TFSA limits. Not a bad scenario.
Wow, the IPCC said they were going to get rid of Tony Abbott and Stephen Harper. It looks like they may get rid of Stephen Harper in Canada. I may have to leave Canada for good then. I didn’t think they had a chance to get rid of Tony. Poof…and he is gone. What power they have!
Yes, and most people don’t realize that this power is even there!
For example, connections from Europe can be followed right into Canada.
IMF, UNEP, European Climate Foundation and then there are the U.S. connections to individuals and organizations.
Sadly, it looks as though we are left with the Shooters and Fishers Party, to find some sanity:
“The Shooters and Fishers Party believes the Carbon Tax is a political construct built on the
false premise that Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is a real phenomenon”
You may now return to your soap opera leadership style.
Labour… can’t be trusted.
Part of the problem for the Liberal/ National party coalition was that it was doomed to lose at the next polls.
I note that Patrick has been pointing this out on these pages for some time.
In Australia most voters make up their minds a year before the polls are taken.
The campaigns are aimed at the marginals and the ‘swingers’.
This was one of the Turnbull points, the Government under Tony Abbot was consistently being beaten by a lacklustre leader of the opposition.
It was beaten in 30 consecutive Newspolls.
Just like Prime Minister Gillard rose to a position beyond her skill set, the Australian Treasurer, loyal to the competent Abbott, was not up to the debate.
Its a pity Hockey, our last treasurer, did not go at the last challenge and put in Scott Morrison.
Remember, Morrison was the one that actually ‘turned back the boats’.
The carbon policy is locked in now, as far as I know and there are bipartisan targets for ‘carbon emissions’.
Were the ALP to be elected, we would have no nuclear power stations,more windmills and solar, more subsidies and more Climate Commissions run by celebrity academics with no qualifications in the area.
The left of the ALP would also attempt to close down the coal industry.
Plenty of first term government have come back from their position. The last poll taken before the knifing was 52/48 with a +/- 3% error rate. In a well run election campaign that is an easy victory, especially against a lifeless opposition leader with big questions over campaign funding hanging over his head. The party could have done much better if half the front bench performed instead of white-anting and failing to support the leader.
Choosing leaders based on newspaper opinion polls is worse than choosing CEOs based on quarterly results. All you will get is short-term populism which is the way to the doghouse for a country.
Seems wrong that voters can elect a Prime Minister (through a party) and two years later the back stabbers can throw him/her out and stay in power pursuing their own mandate.
This is pretty normal in most systems based on the ‘mother of all parliaments’. Individuals elect a representative. The majorty party leader becomes the Prime Minister (or premier as we call it for each state gov). The leader can be changed at any time by that party.
In the Westminster political system, no-one votes for a PM other than the party. Abbott is an MP in his own electorate. Typically, leaders of parties become PM.
From here you can see massive shut downs of high wage industries. A lot of them were already in a precarious situation. Now the decision is more clear.
The car industry chose to shutdown under the ALP pantomime.
after….the labor/unions gave them mega millions
Yes. Toyota were given a grant of AU$72m by KRudd747, the man with hair to fly, to develop an Australian designed/made hybrid. I don’t see it in the shops.
14 Sept: WaPo: Ishaan Tharoor: Tony Abbott is out of a job, and another leading climate-change skeptic may soon follow
…Harper is now under threat, too. Canada will hold parliamentary elections in October…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/09/14/tony-abbott-is-out-of-a-job-and-another-leading-climate-change-skeptic-may-soon-follow/
A U.S. style political PAC has been set up in Canada known as GreenPAC which supports green candidates of all parties and purports to match donors with like-minded candidates for the upcoming October federal election.
Don’t know if foreign donors are included in these arrangements.
http://www.greenpac.ca
The current problem with Australian politics will sort itself out soon enough. We are rapidly running out of other people’s money.
But unfortunately, Australia will have to become the Greece of the Pacific before commonsense economics and hard work to add value become once again the drivers of public opinion.
Whatever Tony Abbott’s personal views on Climate Change, publicly and policy wise he has stayed in the warmer’s camp. He may have opposed a direct tax on Carbon, but he still set ambitious and destructive targets and raised the tax on petrol (gas) and diesel whilst he was in office.
Outside of Climate policies, his rhetoric was always divisive and fear driven. His first budget was more brutal than anything proposed by the most hard line Republicans in America, made worse by the fact that every cut he tried to make he had specifically promised not to cut during his election campaign. I am glad he’s gone.
The search for a politician brave enough to stand up to the Climate Change scam goes on.
While there are a number of reasons, the driving force was that Turnbull wanted to be Prime Minister. His ego over rides everything else. If he waited until after the next election (assuming a conservative defeat) he would simply be too old to win at the election afterwards.
It was simply “Roll Abbott or never have the top job”. His ego drove him to do it.
I meant the UN, not IPCC. Just in the nick of time for the UN as they are out of money.
There is a problem in Australian politics when the media can undermine governments including manufacturing statistics behind polls and then use these to oust elected leaders. It seems to be a media driven coup.
The Australian media seems to have gotten out of control, although I’m not sure how or why this is the case.
Because they haven’t been defunded, just like the CBC in Canada. I’d sell them off to the highest bidder in a New York Minute if given the chance.
The media is the enemy of the people, keep that in mind.
Because they have been infiltrated by the left for many years; because Malcolm Turnbull has been the Minister in charge of Public Broadcasting for the past two years and done nothing and because all governments are scared to actually do anything like selling it off in chunks as should be done.
every second story on CBC these days is about the gay bacon lettuce and tomato crowd and the Social Justice warriors
Absolute disaster for Australia. Turncoat is a mad climate action supporter and he and his mate will install an ETS. Sad sad day for Australia.
An ETS could not be legislated before the election next year, we will have a say, and I suggest we make it count. As you walk into the booth tell the Lib scrutineers that you won’t vote for Turnbull and pick a conservative alternative to vote for…. don’t know who that is, well ask them, after the ballot paper is decided the AEC publishes their details. E-mail them and ask them their views on climate and economics, small govt and individual liberty. Vote for the candidate that gives the best answer.
Like Britain, none are democracies they are in fact more akin to backward dictartorship[s were 20 votes can decide what 12 million changed. The US is far more advanced politically and mentally. In fact most South American countries are way ahead these days as well LOL
The poms have gone 300 years and Australia over 100 years without a Civil War. How did the American Republic do? Similarly the number of nations wanting to copy the US system are quite rare, unlike those trying to enter the British led Commonwealth. 😉
Australia and Britain have never had any kind of social revolution that wasn’t forced onto the subjects by the rulers, often against the wishes of the people. We never get to vote for the rules we have to live by for the duration of our lives, being only permitted to vote for a ruler from a menu of candidates preselected by The Parties.
In contrast, anyone in the United States can write a ballot initiative and try to get the signatures required to put it on the ballot. They don’t have to beg and plead and petition their so-called “representatives” to actually represent them. Sometimes they get to vote for the rules instead of rulers.
Australians can’t even fathom that idea.
The poms started a couple thousand years before the US, so I am not sure that comparison is valid. Britain just barely survived Scotland leaving, and had to offer devolution of power and lots of investment dollars to head that off. You had the Troubles for 30+ years. As far as nations copying the British system vs the US, a lot of that is the result of colonization, which Britain did and the US much less so. I’m not sure that is something to be bragging about….. 😉
The American colonists had about 150 years, 1620-1776, of dealing the British parliamentary system and did not adopt this system.
The U.S. presidential ticket has to get ballot status in each state to run in that state. No Coups allowed so that the will of the people won’t be thwarted by a few.
Tony Abbott is an honourable man who was hated by the left because he actually achieved a great deal and because he was modest and refused to pander to them
His final speech brought me to tears – http://catallaxyfiles.com/2015/09/15/tony-abbotts-farewell-speech/
We have lost a great deal to satisfy Malcolm Turnbull’s egotistism and grandiosity.
Hated by the left? He was dumped by his own party!
Our new PM Malcolm Turnbull is very much a supporter of AGW, Carbon Tax, ETS, gay marriage and will encourage more refugee boats to land in Australia. Sadly we no longer have a sensible Conservative party but yet another socialist party. This is why there will be droves of Conservative Liberal supporters looking for an alternative party to vote for in the next election.
Australia’s New Prime Minister To Stick To Government’s Climate Policy
Malcolm Turnbull last night said he would stick with existing Coalition policy on key issues such as climate change — and he expected the parliament to run its full term.
Mr Turnbull moved to head off concerns that he would take the party to the Left on social and environmental issues if he won the leadership pledging to be consultative and restore traditional cabinet government.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/abbott-v-turnbull-malcolm-promises-new-style/story-fn59niix-1227527251934?nk=f92e372d6ca7358c2b8e295fd263b931-1442299739
I knew Turncoat would challenge Abbott for the top jobs, and suggested that he would some time ago. But I would, like Gillard, would not trust a word he says regarding climate changed an ETS.
yeah…and he promised….to be a loyal party member TO the Elected leader as well.
I have voted for the LNP coalition for 40 years and won’t be voting for them again while Turnbill is PM. Turnbill is a manchurian candidate. Go the following site for some background.
http://stopturnbull.com/
When you have this amount of turnover at a top leadership position it means you have no leadership at a top leadership position.
Hey guys – when I paused blocking to look at your joke video, I got 99 different cookies, trackers, pingers, poppers, widgets and god knows what.
Blocking back on. That’s ridiculous.
There is probably a little bit more background information Tony Abbot was known in the Howard Government as a good performer and something of a head kicker in getting tasks done, he had great debating skills and his takedowns of the poorly performing Labor Government leaders, Gillard and Rudd were devastating and that is what got the Liberals back into Government with a huge majority.
What wasn’t understood was the resentment that had grown out of his exposure of Gillard and the sisterhood that was praising her as the first female Prime minister, and when GIllard pulled a huffy stunt and accused him of being a misogynist the labour sisterhood and American counterparts whipped up a convenient media storm.
Another thing to consider there is a rather tight knit group calling itself Getup that is closely modelled on Fenton Communications, GetUp who have their own agenda including a stake in promoting the Global warming myth,were busily organising in the background, collecting signatures and email addresses of good hearted Australians concerned about treatment of animals, environmental issues, or any other concern the media might drum up an issue about.
This gave Getup a lot of social power to quickly enlist people to back “ground swell campaigns” and claim they had members and influence, enough to bankrupt businessmen that they raised environmental or exploitation concerns about. Unions directed funds to them to exploit wage concerns and social issues and make no mistake about it as the Union Superannuation or “Industry Funds” run “only for the benefit of members” had huge war chests of money to indirectly fund the Labor Party and to fund “environmental” campaigns that could be tied into ways to bring down governments, discredit individuals and parties.
While Tony Abbot won the lower house convincingly, in the Senate Upper house there was some dirty work in which a parcel of votes went missing in Western Australia, that meant further elections and delay in results for the Senate and instead of winning an outright majority in both houses, the traditional caution and fears about unbridled power kicked in, not to mention a numbers game of preference swapping that elected a record number of independents. Clive Palmer said to be a rich mining promoter, ios said to have spent millions to cobble together an Alliance of independents, he had a few scores to settle with the Abbot party machine that failed to sell their souls and back his Queensland projects.
Palmer and Turnbull met at mysterious lunches where some say they plotted the destabilization of Tony Abbot, and later Palmer was involved in the strange alliance with Al Gore in his visit to Australia – Global warming Guru Big Al and would be coal baron Palmer who had suddenly become a Global warming enthusiast, a big man trying to shed his leopard spots ?
With a hostile ABC promoting every supposed misstep and not being able to get economic reforms through the Senate because of the blocking of the necessary legislation the Abbot government had an uphill battle, a lingering resentment in the Gillard sisterhood and a constant stream of targeted anti Abbot claims, he could do nothing right, and in that weakened state could not risk pulling the trigger for a Double Dissolution of Parliaments that should in normal circumstances have wiped out most of the blockers, as that is the way voting trends go in Australia, but the anti Abbot crowd made sure he didn’t get to celebrate anything with the media emphasis with his mean austerity budget,
He was however on track to reap the approval of many of his initial detractors and many of the things that Turnbull will now claim as resounding successes were the result of Tony Abbots honestly and zeal to stop the boats, fix the Labor debt ridden basket case economy and restore wages and industry to a competitive level where we could build exports, open up trade, reduce tariffs and the economic rewards would flow.
The well organized and well funded anti Abbot social media campaigners built such a wall of personal hate it started to show in media polls that were finally used as an excuse to bring on his demise. Many of the vocal critics were women and it seemed that women universally hated him, whereas, if you look at the social media it is mainly women that are now coming out and condemning the treachery of Turnbull, I can tell you that fair minded and yes conservative Australian voters are declaring they will not vote for the plotters or Malcolm at the next election – had Tony Abbot delayed the leadership vote two or three days, the plotters would have deserted Malcolm in droves.
That is not the whole story, Tony made errors, but not unrecoverable without those additional factors. Given the time in the lead up to the next election he was on track with results however I’ll leave that to others.to comment. I think we will be sold out by Turncoat and the plotters, sadly.
Thanks KenB for the most interesting info !
Brgds/TJ
Malcolm Turnbull has wisely confirmed that he will be taking Abbott’s climate change plans to the Paris Climate Conference, and will not introduce any ETS or carbon tax.
In the Australian Parliament, yesterday, Turnbull also informed the Greens leader that there are many ways to achieve a CO2 emissions reduction, and that it is the outcome that matters not the Green’s ideology that an ETS or a carbon tax are the only ways to achieve the desired outcome.