Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Australia’s unpopular green Conservative Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is gone, deposed yesterday by a party room vote. But the track record of Australia’s new Prime Minister Scott Morrison on climate change, on a range of issues, is less than clear.
Conservative media attacks look set to continue under Scott Morrison
By Dana McCauley & Chloe Booker
24 August 2018 — 5:55pmConservative media commentators who aggressively backed Peter Dutton in the Liberal leadership challenge have put Scott Morrison on notice, indicating that there will be no honeymoon period for the incoming prime minister.
Speaking to Fairfax Media, 2GB morning host Ray Hadley made clear that conservative supporters expected Mr Morrison to behave differently under the new order, calling for a return to the ScoMo of years gone by.
“If he’s to reconnect to the conservative electorate, the old Scott has to return,” Hadley said.
“He’ll need to show he’s completely different to Malcolm on three major issues: power supply and cost – i.e. ditch the Paris agreement – and he’ll need to reduce immigration almost immediately.”
…
The problem – while Scott Morrison has at times positioned himself as a fan of coal and cheap energy, over the years Morrison has appeared to be a little too flexible, sacrificing his original staunchly Conservative message in his pursuit of his career. In recent years he has been seen as a little too close to the previous Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. So nobody really knows what Morrison stands for, or what he intends to do.
Scott Morrison has one chance to get this right.
Save us from squishes!
Yep , in the mug-shot he looks like a right slime ball politician. Wound not trust him to go the bar for me.
Look like he probably still lives with his mother.
I’ll only believe it when I see it….
As an outsider, I need to ask the question of Australian politics, if the party can vote out a democratically electric official that has not committed a crime, even if you don’t support his position, is this a democracy for the people or rule of law? Where I am (Canada) you don’t vote for the “party” you vote for the person.
In Australia the governing party MPs decide who ius the leader i.e. PM. Citizens olnly vote for their local candidate not the government ministers. Republics get to vote for presidents or PMs but Oz is not a republic.
Oz ia a parliamentary democracy like the UK, NZ and Canada where the head of state role is defacto in the hands of an appointed representative, the Governor General (the Queen herself in the UK of course). PM’s are chosen by the party who can demostrate the confidence of the parliament to form a government and the PM is the chief minister thereof.
IMO that makes Oz a republic, i.e. res publica , in fact as against in some formal sense. There places that call themselves People’s Democratic Republics and are nothing of the sort at all, in fact are virtually the opposite.
Nope.
A monarchy as head of state (among other things) disqualifies Aus, NZ, Canada and the UK as “republics”. You may consider this a trivial matter, but try running a vote of the people to actually change it.
If authors squish terms around to have whatever meaning the author wishes, then you haven’t really communicated much.
Mate,
I said ‘in fact’ , i.e. de facto, i.e. in reality. Republic is derived from Res Publica , rule by the people. A ‘Constitutional Monarchy’ is not an unqualified or absolute monarchy and is in reality just a de facto res publica.
The reason we did not change it last time we had a vote on the matter is that we don’t like presidential politics and besides would require a constitutional rewrite not to mention the ‘ republicans’ were split on the model.
Remember last time you though you elected your leaders and Gov. General removed the PN from office on orders from the Queen?
Until that actually happened everyone thought it was just a theoretical monarchy and they would never really dare use that power.
That is your “de facto” truth, mate. Until you change it in law, it will always be that way.
Yeah, but Gough just had to go and the subsequent election result confirmed that.
The fact that the pathetic little alcoholic and Labor appointed GG did not use his won authority is his problem. It may well be that formality required him to ask HRH, I have forgotten the details frankly, I was at uni at the time but Gough had to go, he and the ALP wer cactus.
To Greg and Komrade Kuma
The Governor-General did not need to ask the Queen to give him permission to sack the PM. Section 64 of the Australian Constitution is relevant:
“The Governor-General may appoint officers to administer such departments of State of the Commonwealth as the Governor-General in Council may establish. Such officers shall hold office during the pleasure of the Governor-General. They shall be members of the Federal Executive Council, and shall be the Queen’s Ministers of State for the Commonwealth.”
An ALP member – I cannot remember if it was the ex-Prime Minister or another ALP member – wrote to the Palace requesting that it intervene, dismiss the Governor-General and reinstate Mr Whitlam as PM. The response awas that this was purely an Australian matter and nothing to do with the Queen.
To Javert Chip – Our Head of State is the Governor-General, not the Queen. She is our monarch. Foreign Affairs are very particular that incoming foreign ambassadors present their credentials to the G-G, not “the Court of St James’s” – which is the UK equivalent. “The Court of St James’s is the royal court for the Sovereign of the United Kingdom.” See the Wikipaedia entry for the Court.
Republic is a form of state. It can be governed anyway.
It is the same in the UK.
Essentially, each constituency puts up a number of candidates of different political party allegiances, and the voter votes for their preferred candidate in their constituency. Then the number of elected candidates is counted and the party that has the most elected candidates forms the government.
That party has the right to chose any one of its members to be the PM. It is not unusual for there to be a change of PM sometime during the term of the government without the consent of the electorate and without the need for a new election.
In recent times, Margaret Thatcher was replaced by John Major, Tony Blair by Gordon Brown, David Cameron by Theresa May (the UK’s current PM). Usually the replacement is far worse than the person that was ousted, although that may not be the case with the ousting of Tony Blair.
Same as Canada, if Trudeau gets rolled as leader by the liberal members (or whatever their rules are) you get a new leader of the party and a new PM.
I do appreciate the responses, this is very similar to the Canadian system (of course). Where I might stand corrected (after reading more news) Turnbull has elected to resign opposed to remaining a back-bencher of his riding.
Don’t think he’s resigned from parliament yet (talking about doing it in a month), only as PM – jumping before he was pushed.
The party could still have booted him from the office. Canada has the same system. Duncan your original post was wrong.
For that matter similar to the US Speaker of the House, who could be voted out by a majority of the representatives and is not directly elected.
Only in the US, the executive and legislative branches are separated for checks and balances.
Unfortunately, Turnbull was not an ‘electric official’, he was in fact, a ‘dud’. When he failed o go off, he was forced to go off stage. People had had enough of him, his own party had had enough of him and he was beyond his use-by date. Turnbull had led everyone up a dead end, there was a widespread wish to get back to matters of real importance like the drought.
“nicholas tesdorf
Unfortunately, Turnbull was not an ‘electric official’…”
His son’s wind turbines could not generate enough power for the old rich windbag.
It’s the UK Westminster system. As Andre states we only get to vote for a local candidate, however, I contend that most people vote for a party and want the leader of that party to be PM. So it’s kind of a defacto vote for the PM. That’s why people are rightly pissed off that the elites in the party room have been knifing our PMs. PS: the ‘Liberal’ party in Australia is the right of centre, conservative party vs what liberal means in the USA. The issue for the Australian Liberal party is that it’s been tugged way left by Turnbull and co. We will see how Morrison deals with that. If he’s wishy washy and sticks to the left, the party will be annihilated at the next election, which for Australia unfortunately means a hard left alliance gets the reins and then Oz is stuffed.
Morrison is no ‘liberal’ in the US sense. He is a Pentecostal Christian of long standing , the son of a cop who became a suburban mayor in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. He is a known political operative from way back, the hard case who ran our Stop The Boats policy (our ‘build a wall’ some years back) and until yesterday our Federal Treasurer.
He is about to kick the backsides of our big banks who have been behaving like Wall St did pre GFC and big energy who have been gaming the energy supply uncertainty recently. He takes on some of the hardest hardcase shockjocks and just laughs in their face. He is no ‘big end of town’ type like Turnbull.
My best guess is that the Libs will bounce back in the polls. They had been drifting up recently until Turnbull made another of his classic stuff ups in a by election campaign and doubled down by citing Paris Targets as part of an energy reliability and cost reform policy. His opponent in Bill Shorten is, well, unpopular at best and his initials are, yeah, BS and sum him up perfectly. How soft a target is that?)
Morrison’s nome de guerre is ScoMo.
Morrison has been dubbed “the new jockey on the same horse” To fix that, he will need to move away from the former PM’s ideology on climate change, UN, socialism etc, that caused him to be dumped by the party. Hopefully Morrison will learn from that, very quickly, otherwise he is a dead duck.
Bashing the banks and slapping a tax on them is not the policy of a conservative. the issue with the banks playing up is the job of the regulators. they have enough power but they do nothing. Morrison may be a Christian but he lurched way left under Turnbull and in a newspaper yesterday he said there will be no lurch to the right.
For American readers; think of the British parliamentry system like so.
* No direct presidential election
* The House Majority Leader, elected by a party convention, has the powers of the president (and then some)
* The Senate is a ceremonial rubber-stamp body with no real power
* The “Leader of the Opposition” is equivalent to the House Minority Leader, also elected by a party convention
Usually party leaders are elected by convention in Canada. But in some places they don’t last too long.
Walterdnes
The USA does not directly elect its president; voters elect electoral college members, who vote for the president.
Five times in America’s (roughly) 60 “presidential” elections, the popular vote was different than the electoral college vote.
Under certain circumstances (another story…), America’s founding fathers designed the system to operate exactly as it did in 2016.
The Prime Minister is more like the House Majority Leader. He doesn’t “rule” exactly, he just administers and sets the agenda for the party in power.. or coalition of parties as the case often is.
“Where I am (Canada) you don’t vote for the “party” you vote for the person.”
++++
Eh? Are you sure? I think you’ll find the Canadian system is the same as Australia’s. The Prime Minister is the leader of the party which commands a majority in the parliament. The only people who directly vote for Justin Trudeau in Canada are those who live in his electorate.
Prime Minister is not an elected position so he was not voted out as Prime Minister. He was voted out as party leader which meant that since the party leader of the controlling leader is asked to be the lead (Prime) minister he was no longer eligible . In theory he remains prime minister until the GG accepts his resignation but in practice that is a formality. It can happen here in Canada depending on the party bylaws regarding choosing party leaders. We don’t vote for party leaders, we just our local MP. So in practice when someone like Justin Trudeau talks about “his mandate” he is blowing smoke.
He won’t change a thing on those issues leading up to an election. He’s been brought in to save the LNP and he can’t.
Pretty accurate summary.
You are quite right – he is for the moment a placeholder until after the next election.
How he performs as that placeholder will determine his post election role.
(Remembering that after any loss the LNP are required too spill their leadership team)
For the moment (anyways) his future is no more certain than Schrodinger’s cat.
“He won’t change a thing on those issues“. Actually, I think that he is smart enough to realise that he does have to change something, and that if he does not then he is quite simply dead in the water. I certainly hope so.
” smart enough” – Let’s hope so.
What’s “LNP”? Some of us are not from Australia.
Liberal National Party.
The Liberal Party was cobbled together from remnants of the anti-Labor Party factions at the end of WW2 and formed the Australian Government, in coalition with the Country Party, from 1949 to ’72. The Country Party along the way changed its name to National Party.
In Queensland, the coalition became formal when the Liberals and National coalesced into one party; in the other states they are two distinct parties but always support each other.
Maybe Patrick lives in Queensland: here the LNP is the formally amalgamated Liberal and National Party. At a national level, the two parties are seperate but form the Coalition, which I think is the more proper political jargon. The National Party used to be the Country Party and generally catered to the concerns of rural people. Not so much any longer.
New South Wales, in The Shire (Dire), the home of ScoMo.
Yes, sorry about that. I usually qualify TLA’s (Three Letter Acronyms) but I was pushed for time (Kids, dinner time, chores etc etc).
Yep one chance and only one.
Scott we’re watching you pal . . .
Good luck. Say what you will about Trump but he either has fulfilled, or is in the process of trying to deliver , all his campaign promises. I just have to keep telling myself it’s not a popularity contest 🙂
ScoMo has been treasurer under near leftard, eco wimp Turnbull so was hardly in a position to push his ‘conservative’ personal agenda. Appointing him as Treasurer and Dutton to Immigration/Home Affairs was Turnbull ‘broadening his church’ (and avoiding having to appoint Abbott to anything).
How about we just give the guy some room to a) appoint his ministry and b) review and revamp the policy agenda. He is way better than Turnbul imo and a better choice on balance than Dutton for PM. Nothing against Dutton generally but he is not PM material imo, just a bit too divisive and too much of an easy target for the leftards. We should thank him for doing the berserker thing and bringing this all to a head even if it leaves him apparently wounded.
August 23, 2018
From: me
Dear Minister for the Environment and Energy,
On Monday 20th August, 2018, a joint media statement by Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg was published on Josh Frydenberg’s website, titled “Driving Power Prices Down.”
The statement conceded that the energy market in Australia does not serve the interest of Australians, and outlined policies intended to reduce price gouging by the power industry, based on [Australian Competition and Consumer Commission] recommendations, including:
i) re-regulation of power prices, and
ii) Government underwriting investment in stable, low-cost, technology neutral power generation.
The media release, mentioned indirectly in several news reports, was briefly available at this address:
http://www.joshfrydenberg.com.au/guest/mediaReleasesDetails.aspx?id=629
On Wednesday 22nd, just 2 days later, following yet another leadership spill, the document vanished, as if it had been vaporized.
Under the Freedom of Information ACT, I request a copy of Monday’s joint media statement.
Thanks & Regards,
me
https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/media_release_driving_power_pric
Friday 25th (yesterday)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4USXCgBzB4
(question on the National Energy Guarantee at 14:14)
That’s interesting. I did see that Press Release, read it and binned it. Maybe there’s hope yet? nope … I’ll give myself an upper cut
Is this it?
http://joshfrydenberg.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/232V1022.pdf
Yay! How did you find that?
I called Freydenberg’s office on Wednesday, was told the policy was no longer valid due to events, hence its removal from the website. and I couldn’t have a copy! That’s why I wrote my now redundant FOI request.
Much appreciated.
It’s still on his website. Unless they took it down and your email forced them to re-think. lol http://joshfrydenberg.com.au/latest-news/driving-power-prices-down/
It’s wait and see. I don’t trust him. As treasurer he based his financial/budget projections on maintaining Australia’s ridiculously high immigration intake, the highest intake rate in the World. I can’t see him making a sensible policy call here. Further the ‘new’ treasure is the ‘old’ Energy & Environment Minister, Josh Freydenberg. He’s a global warming greenie through and through, unless under Turnbull he was doing the ex-PMs bidding. In which case it demonstrates the weakness of the man. Morrison is also weak in that he capitulated to the green PM Turnbull as Treasurer also.
Uh oh, Australian PM’s set in wax suspended;
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/wax-off-madame-tussauds-suspends-work-on-malcolm-turnbull-figure-20180824-p4zzlb.html
I agree with one of the comments, move the wax models to Canberra they will do a better job!
I believe the response that fits best is ‘Wax on, Wax off’
It looks like one man’s opportunity is waxing and the other’s is waning.
Daniel San!
Good comments Eric.
The jury is out on Morrison; his own policy preferences are largely unknown, but if he turns into a “mini-Mal” then the problems will continue.
If the new leadership of Morrison-Frydenberg, both progressive Liberals (in Australia=Republican), do not engage in serious policy reform that allows conservatives to support new bills, then we really might be seeing the beginning of a Liberal-Conservative party split. It wont take long to see what the new leadership is going to do, and motherhood statements aside, initial comments were not encouraging.
The National Energy Guarantee policy (NEG), authored by new deputy Frydenberg, was probably the straw that broke the camel’s back, and led to open revolt and Turnbull’s removal. It embedded the Paris Agreement at its core, and sought to legislate a ridiculous 26% of national power supply as renewables, while introducing a carbon tax by stealth. It would have caused the closure of more base load power stations, particularly coal. With the most complex of financial structures/subsidies/taxes, the failed leadership claimed the policy would lead to lower power prices, which voters would not buy.
And ps: Turnbull was no way a green Conservative Prime Minister. He was a green left Liberal, well into the US Democrat spectrum. Put simply, in Australia he was in the wrong party. He joined the Liberal party because the major left party, the Australian Labor Party, turned him down years ago.
An Australian Aaron Burr, as it were. Burr had few friends and little political future in the Jeffersonian Democrats. So he offered himself up to the Federalists in New York as a candidate for Congress, after his term as Vice-President was over. Native New Yorker Alexander Hamilton called him out on his duplicity and bald-faced opportunism in several written public statements. Burr took grave offense, and this ultimately lead to their (in)famous duel.
Spot on Dave….. I am convinced that Turnbull was put in place by the Labor Party to destroy the LNP, of which he was quite successful in doing. Turnbull trashed and set fire to the LNP as he exited the back door.
Also should mention that Australia has already exceeded that 26% target, in name plate capacity. Wind Turbines approximately 5 Gigawatts, Solar Farms approximately 7 Gigawatts compared to existing, Coal at approximately 25 Gigawatts. Renewable’s will reach at least 50% by 2020 taking into account the amount of large scale projects in place at present. There is a current proposal for a 2 Gigawatt Solar Farm in Queensland. Of course name plate ratings, for renewable’s, is quite different to the delivery of energy, but don’t tell the Greens that.
So, PeterR
We won’t see the full cost until 2024-2025.So power prices will double again in the next 5 years. Just don’t let them hide the costs by selling wind farms to super funds.
Power prices are set to rise but as much as 20% every year for the next 10 years or more. IIRC this was announced last year or the year before. This is what people, and small businesses, are upset about while the “top end of town” (Malcolm’s wealthy banking mates) get tax breaks and regulators turn a blind eye to corrupt corporate practices.
I’m always skeptical when the Government “guarantees” anything. Every time they stick their nose into things that might affect the consumer, the consumer always loses. Look at the child-care subsidy – whenever the government increases it, the childcare centres just put up their rates. Morrison has a LOT of work to do to restore this country but I just hope he gets serious about energy policy and leaves idiot strategies like the NEG in the bin.
It’s exactly the same with the first home buyers grant. As an example a grant of AU$15,000 was introduced and ta daaaaaa…house prices went up by exactly AU$15,000.
Well done, great result – NOT! The Abbot-led rump of the conservatives in the Liberal Party, and their fan club in the right wing of the Australian media, have handed the next election to Bill Shorten and the Labor Party on a plate, and quite possibly the election after the next too, and a certain 45% emissions reduction target.
To the average swinging voter, who decides elections in Australia, the Liberal Party now looks totally unfit to govern, riven by strife and an ongoing internal war. Scott Morrison can’t win, whatever he does, literally and metaphorically. He has a maximum of 8 months before an election must be called, and voters aren’t going to forget this debacle in that short space of time. He can swing to the right and implement policies that will placate the conservatives in the Liberal party, at the risk of alienating the majority centre in his party and the majority of voters. That may stop the civil war, but the election result will be the same as if Dutton had won – a few seats in Queensland saved from stemming the flow to One Nation, but the Liberals will be massacred in the southern states, where swinging voters would never have voted for Dutton and won’t support Dutton-lite policies. Alternatively, he can continue with policies similar to his predecessor, and risk that the conservative will continue their civil war and provide ongoing evidence to the electorate of the Liberal party’s unfitness to govern, which will also result in an electoral massacre.
It’s a terrible thought, but there is now a very real risk that the swing to Labor will be so great that it will take at least two terms, possibly more, for the Liberals to be re-elected. So, instead of a relatively modest emissions reduction target of 26-28%, we will almost certainly have a 45% target for 8 to 10 years or more, with all the additional costs and burdens that will incur, and with no additional benefit to Australia other than a massive virtue signalling opportunity for the Labor party. Is that what the conservative plotters wanted? Sadly, the cost of putting ideological purity over political pragmatism is one for which the Liberal party and the Australian people will pay for many years to come.
Not sure why you were marked down for your post because I think it is a very accurate account of what has happened and a very likely outcome for Australia within the next 8 months or so.
Partisan Bollocks SS
The Libs have an inside Run based on Immigration/Refugees alone. Regardless what they say, Labor/Green will have a compassion attack and restart the boats.
Getting out of Paris will guarantee victory.
An election for the normal half Senate and House of Representatives can be called any time now. The latest date for this is polling day 18 May, with the Parliament being dissolved on 12 March (this allows Senate writs to be returned on 30 June so new Senators can take their seats 1 July). For a double dissolution of the Senate, the Parliament would have to be dissolved on or before the 27 February with polling day between 6 April and 4 May inclusive. The 27 February date is require because the HoR cannot be dissolved for a double dissolution less than 6 months before its expiry, which is 29 August.
Should Mr Morrison opt for separate Senate and HoR elections, the Senate election would have to be by 18 May, and the HoR election by 2 November. A most unlikely scenario.
See Wikipaedia : https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1617/AustralianElectionsTimetable
What Does Australia’s New Prime Minister Mean for Aussie Climate Policy?
Sod all.
If an Australian government could do anything important, we wouldn’t be allowed to have one.
Scott Morrison is probably the most bankable of the contenders.
He is a retail politician.
He is quite capable of talking to the ABC as well as being also the member for Alan Jones, the forthright commentator.
Tony Abbott made the point, to paraphrase, that now we have saved the Liberal Party, we are going to save
Australia from the labor party.
We need to go back to our base and consolidate.
Conservative, and realistic commentators have stated that Turnbull made a number of key mistakes.
1 The failure of Turnbull to place one of the best ‘assets’, Tony Abbott, on the front bench and give him Defence. Better in the broad tent than out of it.
2 Explain, he’s a banker, dividend imputation confiscation just hurts the poor retiree.
Its Labor policy.
Turnbull had no energy for clarifying the error of the ALP, nor taking them to task.
It was if he were somewhere else, in the boardroom, building big ticket statements, say snowy 2.1, yet to come.
3 Carefully alienating his base by advocating tax cuts for big business.
Apart from the fact that this was not going through the senate, there was good reason to see it would fail
a] Big business had been ripping off the small businesses for a long time.
b]The Banking and Superannuation royal comission had shown this amply.
Witness a recent letter, last week, from the MLC, a bank institution
‘We’ve reviewed the Plan Service Fee deducted from your account and found we made an error between[ ] and [ ]. We shouldn’t have deducted these fees as you didn’t have an adviser…………]’
The amount in question is about $1200.
Below, ironically
‘We’re here to help.’
Yes to help themselves.
Small producers are pitched against an oligopaly with the grocer duopaly, Woolies and Coles, petrol companies are forcing a fuel supply drought, so cost hike, crisis on us which is gathering momentum.
Our distillate reserves are now 15 days supply.
https://www.festanks.com.au/blog/australias-liquid-fuel-security/
Turnbull opposed the Commission that uncovered the Criminality.
c]The ATO has no accountable independent appeal system that does not cost the funds to float a small African State.
The time is now to set one up based on the principles of Natural Justice.
4] Turnbull had a visceral lack of common sense.
Even the Socratic method could have saved him.
a]When the sun sets and the wind drops on a hot Sunday night and everyone is home with A/C on watching Netflix
Question, will anyone give them cheap dependable power?
Am I prepared to do that ?
b]Since we are sending all our coal and LNG of overseas, why can’t we keep some for ourselves?
c] When AGL wants to know if we are prepared to go to the future with them, will I let them rip us off
as has happen by gaming the electricity and gas supply situation, as well as the next step for others, the petrol crunch?
His answer was a forthright baffle, which meant ‘no’.
Scott Morrison actually does not believe we are doomed by ‘carbon’ emissions.
As a retail politician all he needs to do is sell the simple truth.
Its easier that way.
Yes, the poorer nations in the world know that coal produces the cheapest electricity. That’s why they buy it from Australia. A way has to be found that makes it economic for generators to build new coal-fired capacity. The green things don’t actually have to be axed, just allowed to wither on the vine, throttled by the silent hand of Adam Smith (mixing my metaphors).
He was good with Abbott, did he just do as turncoat wanted??
The initial points he indicated he wants to address says to me ScoMo might be throwing off some shackles!! But he knows he must be seen to be different to turncoat so I might just site on the fence – with popcorn!!
I am calling Scott Morrison, the ‘Accidental Prime Minister’. He wasn’t actually seeking the role, was he? But now that he is there, well, I dunno. He has to prove to the electorate, that the LNP is a point of difference to the ALP/Greens, nit more of the same! Yes, he was good with TA, but not so much under MT. Is he still under MT’s spell? Time will tell.
Morrison has appointed Frydenberg as his deputy, so this will be Turnbull Mk II. Frydenberg was the energy minister who kept pushing the NEG, which was just another carbon tax in disguise. The Libs will continue to push the same line as Green/Labor, a sure path to (well-deserved) oblivion.
Deputies are not appointed by the Prime Minister they are elected by the part in government. If the Lips push the NEG they will lose the next election.
One can only hope that Frydenberg’s position on the NEG changes. His position while the greenish/climate alarmist Turnbull was PM was consistent with Turnbull’s position on Climate Change otherwise Turnbull would have thrown him under a bus which he did to other Cabinet Ministers including Morrison on reforming policies Turnbull didn’t approve
I think this gives a clue to ScoMo’s thoughts.
PM Morrison brought a lump of coal into Canberra Parliament in Feb 2017
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=5897
For anyone who is remotely interested in what is going on around the world, corruption being key, read martin Armstrong economics.
If you don’t , it’s your problem.
That sh**-eating grin in the portrait is probably not a good sign. 😐
And so, will he become the ditch witch of Australian politics, is his heart, in scooping up and dumping, so much of that shit, he has recently been supporting. Lets hope, he does, and not go down as the “slow.Mo”, but jumps into the fast lane, the track to restore the sanity bug back into Australian society.
Scott Morrison. Also know as “Gerry Harvey’s bitch”. That little puppet-weasel will do whatever his masters command. He probably won’t do anything much on climate, unless someone commands it. And if he’s not gone at the next election, he’ll be gone in 1 year 9 months.
He sounds like a polly’s polly.
Australia is a Constitutional democracy whereby the government is democratically elected by the people and the leader of the elected party, be they Labor or Liberal-National party, who wins the election becomes the Prime Minister (PM).
It so happens from time to time that either party can decide, without resorting to the Parliament, to remove the sitting PM via a vote of the elected members of those parties (Labor or Liberal-Nationals) even though he was elected by the people and was considered worthy of being the PM.
There is NO impeachment process needed in this case as happens in the USA
Australia is not a Republic! A referendum was held on this issue to amend our Constitution to either elect our Head of State or he/she be chosen by the elected members of our Parliament, This referendum vote failed.
Currently, Australia’s virtual head of state is the Governor General, appointed by the Parliament who represents the Queen of Australia, who also happens to be the Queen of the UK. He can under certain circumstances step in and request a new election via the people to elect a new government
This is a good thing being like this because I believe if Australia’s head of state was a President, and if he turns out to be a complete failure, and without a better considered rewrite of our Constitution we could not remove the person. Probably one of the reasons our first try for Republic status failed. The whole process was not thought through