At The Oz: Minor parties demand price for support. And don’t think Malcolm wouldn’t give them what they ask to save his miserable hide.

Malcolm Turnbull has opened talks with the new kingmakers in federal parliament to save his government after a savage swing against him in a federal election that has fuelled dissent over his leadership and thrown the nation into political turmoil.

The Prime Minister insisted he was “quietly confident” of holding power as he pledged to work with the independents who could ­decide his fate, clearing the way for days of talks while Australians wait to learn the outcome of an election that remains too close to call.

Bill Shorten vowed to seek a “consensus” in the new parliament and dismissed the idea of going back to the polls, but stopped short of outlining a plan to form a minority Labor government. . . .

The Australian learned last night that Mr Turnbull had spoken yesterday to three crucial crossbenchers, Nick Xenophon, Andrew Wilkie and Cathy McGowan, and is hoping to talk to other influential players in coming days to shore up support without striking a formal alliance.

“I have spoken to a number of the crossbenchers and what I’ve said to them is what I say to you now — that we will be able to form a majority government,” Mr Turnbull said yesterday. “And in those circumstances, and indeed in any circumstances, we always seek to work constructively with all the members of the parliament, as we have done in the past.”

The fact is that each of the minor parties comes with a shopping list a mile long. A genuine party of restraint which was the party John Howard and Tony Abbott led, would not go near any such thing. Malcolm, on the other hand, cares only about Malcolm, with his own political survival all he has in mind. What won’t he agree to? What will he agree to? We shall soon see.

And there is a second article worth a look at The Oz as well: ‘Liberals pay price for ousting Abbott’. Nothing in the article you won’t find mentioned here on Catallaxy, but the comments thread is a lesson and a half. A sample:

Abbott is the most underestimated politician in Australia’s history.He is Australian working class and middle class combined ,humble and unique but most of all his has no fear and confronts issues with a strong desire to fix them whatever the cost to his own popularity.I disagree with him on some issues but have never doubted his courage.A brave heart.

It would be petty to gloat at Malcolm’s failure. Let me be the first to do so.

Turnbull believes in nothing and the voting public know it. He purports to be an economic genius and inspirational leader but has shown he is clueless and indifferent. He thought that the Conservative base had to vote Liberal because they had nowhere else to go – WRONG! He has to resign and the new PM must call a fresh election.

Forget that excuse about similarities to 1998. Bill Shorten is no Kim Beasley, Turnbull is no John Howard. Mr Howard was attempting to implement a huge reform package while Turnbull was attempting a trickle down micro- reform package. Howard had a united party, Turnbull does not. Howard was conservative, Turnbull is not. Howard earned his right to be the leader, Turnbull did not. Howard believed the right mattered so he he spoke to all conservative journalists, Turnbull did not. Finally, Howard showed humility and respect.

Turnbull promised everything and delivered nothing. He must resign!

MARK STEYN ADDITION: Mark has taken time off from his summer of research to discuss The Blunder Down Under. Naturally you must read it all, but here is the relevant bit so far as this post is concerned.

The Oz Liberal Party is liberal in the classical-liberal sense – ie, it’s the right-of-center party. Last year’s Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, a conservative, was toppled by Malcolm Turnbull, who isn’t in the least bit conservative but rather a modish technocrat know-it-all of consuming personal ambition. I rank him higher than an outright poseur such as David Cameron on the grounds that, when it comes to, say, climate change, Turnbull is a genuine believer whereas Cameron is just going with the flow. At any rate, here’s what I said about Turnbull on the ABC’s Q&A back in February:

TONY JONES: Mark Steyn, what do you think? How does this look from a distance? I know you were, as a conservative, you were quite a – well, you were a supporter of Tony Abbott.

MARK STEYN: Yeah, yeah. Tony was more congenial to me than his usurper but Lenore, I thought, put it very well. You know, he came to power because of the bad polls – because there had been, like, 137 lousy polls for Tony Abbott. So he staged his coup. If the polls head south for Malcolm Turnbull, that destroys the rationale for his prime ministership… The deal was that nothing would change except his face where Tony Abbott’s face used to be and I think he’s caught in a trap of his own making there. If the poll numbers reach Tony Abbott levels, what was the point of the switch? You’re in Kevin-and-Julia territory then.

The ultimate poll – Saturday’s election – proved to be far worse. But it did, as I said on the telly that night, utterly destroy the rationale for Turnbull’s coup.

Nobody won!

My preference on pure policy to take over as PM remains Tony Abbott, but my reservations do exist and are not small. His greatest weakness when PM and leader was an inability to take a hard line with others. Sentimentality in the role of a leader is not an asset but a fatal debility. This, on the day after the election, irritates me endlessly: Turnbull ‘gave it everything’. Abbott doesn’t have to say what I say, that Malcolm is a far-left incompetent and if we are going to have a hung Parliament he should be the one to be hung first. On the other hand, Abbott doesn’t have to say this either:

Tony Abbott has urged his Coalition colleagues to “take stock” and reflect on what’s occurred over the past several months, calling on them to “carefully, calmly consider what’s best” going forward, Jared Owens writes.

“(Malcolm Turnbull) gave it everything and good on him for giving it everything,” Mr Abbott said. “I guess there are a lot of people who have got a lot to reflect upon as a result of what’s happened over the last little while.

“Rather than rush out and pontificate on a whole lot of different subjects, I think we need to carefully, calmly consider what’s best. All I think we can do today is take stock, to think, to reflect, rather than just come out with snap judgments.”

Asked about the impact of his own removal as leader last September, Mr Abbott told reporters: “I’m just not going to go back and dwell on events of nine months or so back.

“The important thing is good people who tried hard, who did what they thought was the best for our country … are no longer in the parliament and it’s sad for them and it’s sad for the rest of them that remain.”

I suppose if you are running to be leader again, you don’t want to alienate anyone, specially fools who are fireproofed in their individual seats to such an extent that they could withstand this latest disaster. Nevertheless, Abbott is only worth putting in as leader if he has truly learned the necessity of a high degree of ruthlessness in the pursuit of the ends he wants pursued. Machiavelli was seen as immoral for saying in print nothing more than what has been perennially standard practice for anyone who has succeeded in politics. Instead of saying that others were doing what they thought best and they should be congratulated for trying to achieve their ends, more to the point would be something like, these people are so far off the planet that it is hard to believe they actually thought this was the way forward.

Do those political morons who led the coup really believe that the result we have actually had is better than the one we would have had if Tony had still been leader? And listening to the campaign speech delivered six hours after the polls had closed made me appreciate just what a guilty mind Malcolm obviously now has. Other than the brute fact of his steel-plated ego protector, he would have fallen on his sword tonight, instead of telling us what a genius he’d been in destroying a party structure and policy position that had been carefully crafted over those many years of opposition and then in the first year and a half of government. He has also created a Senate eminently workable for a Labor Government but one in which the Coalition will be hard pressed to get a single issue of substance legislated.

The good news is that even with Malcolm leading the party, there is enough sanity left in the country to have kept Labor out. And it does seem possible that we have ended up with exactly the outcome I had hoped for. I wrote a post a week or so back on You don’t have to wait three years and an election cycle (or two). There I suggested:

The strategy has to be to get the Libs over the line and then see Malcolm turfed out before the year comes to an end. Whatever he may think, the Turnbull agenda is comprehensively dead.

The death of Turnbull’s agenda is even more apparent now than it was a week ago. But if the Libs do get over the line – which is more likely than not but by no means certain – he must go. He won’t want to because he never sees the slightest fault in himself in anything he does, but that’s the reality. I don’t know how it should be arranged but arranged it must be. The Party that drank the Turnbull Kool Aid must now find renewal which will not happen until Malcolm is finally gone.