Let me start with Malcolm Turnbull’s speech on the economy the other day and about what a great job he believes he could do to sell the current need to bring fiscal responsibility back into vogue. Maybe so, but the evidence Turnbull can sell anything other than pre-approved Labor polices to Labor voters is still untested. So it is therefore good to have seen another perspective: Hartigan attacks Turnbull on “woeful” record, also a few days back. It begins:

FORMER News Corp boss John Hartigan has launched a blistering attack against Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull for failing to reform media laws, accusing of him of having a “woeful” track record and ignoring regional communities.

The chairman of regional TV company Prime Media Group was responding to Turnbull’s “tough talking speech about the economy” to the Brisbane Club yesterday, which he said was “packed full of platitudes about embracing the future and the need for reform”.

Hartigan said: “Malcolm Turnbull reckons he can sell tough reform, but his track record in his own portfolio is woeful.”

“The Minister likes to talk the talk when discussing the economy, but when it comes to tackling much needed media reform in his own portfolio, I wonder if he will walk the walk?

For Malcolm to think he has been a political genius in finding a way to bring in Labor’s NBN with a mild reduction in the level of pure waste may seem wonderful to him but not to me. Where was he when the NBN was being debated in the first place? A white elephant that will sink our living standards, an outcome on which I have never heard Turnbull say a word. I wonder if he even knows.