I have to say that I am unable to follow the rights and wrongs of the specifics in this ridiculous tantrum from the PM in regard to anything related to Tony Abbott. My instincts are always to think that Malcolm has messed things up but this business with who offered who what about guns is a murky question that can only distract. What I am doing, therefore, is to put the issues before the people, that is, to those who comment here. I have taken the four comments from Andrew Bolt’s blog piece, Turnbull vs Abbott: the war is on. I will start with a couple of comments that take the PM’s side, one that is more neutral and then finally one that takes Tony’s side. But I do have to say, to find those who back the PM at Andrew’s site is difficult. Here’s the first:

If Mr Abbott did not know he should have. He is ultimately responsible for his staff and his office. Ignorance is no excuse. If he truly did not know he condemns himself for being slack and incompetent. Of course the reality is that Mr Abbott was being loose with the truth. He has selfishly remained in parliament to act as a lighting rod for a rag tag band of disgruntled Coalition MP’s in order to sabotage his successor and his party in a crazy bid for revenge. After the Leadership farce of the Labor government it would seem obvious that the public will not tolerate such behavior. Unfortunately the Mr Abbott in his quest to do or say anything to regain power has not learned the lessons of recent history. With a one seat majority and disastrous polls it is unlikely that the warring Coalition will last a full term.

And then there’s this:

Abbott gave Turnbull him no choice and in fact I think it was well overdue. Good for Turnbull to make a stand. Abbott “Mr Goody Two Shoes” but skulking in the background and constantly causing issues and creating diversions for his own party. Abbott should go and go fast. It wasn’t Turnbull who dumped him, it was his party and the people of Australia, that’s right, the voters.

This one is more neutral:

They deserve each other.

Neither of them is addressing this issue on the basis of whether it is good law. Neither of them is asking whether it is justified by the evidence.

When John Howard brought it in, it was a piece of bullying – attacking and vilifying g a poorly-understood minority in order to gain political advantage.

Now both Turnbull and Abbott are continuing in the same vein. Either one of them could take the moral high ground by admitting that the policy was mistaken, and pointing to the facts as justification. Neither of them is likely, because the politics of fear and personality take precedence over good government.

Facts

– Formal advice to the Justice Minister is that the Adler is not a matter for public concern.

– This type of firearm has been available and legal in Australia for well over a century, without being a problem.

– The NSW Police have been unable to find even a single crime committed with this firearm over the last 5 years.

– It is not of the type preferred by criminals and cannot be reasonably modified to suit.

– Martin Bryant, Man Monis and Marc and Gino Stocco all acquired their firearms illegally. The problem has never been lack of legislation, but lack of enforcement.

And this one takes Tony’s side.

Had Malcolm Turnbull, when interviewed on this issue Monday from memory, ignored what a Howard or a Hawke would have done, and answered with a simple “no” when the question was put to him, all this that has followed would have been avoided.

The government, with Turnbull to his credit and his willingness to prosecute a core Liberal Party ideal at last trying to get the critical ABCC Statute through and obtain the first real, and to be objective a substantial piece of real reform, albeit yet another Abbott era policy and initiated policy, Turnbull could have dominated the rabble of the alternative ALP Opposition and really won the week and the political optics.

Yet Turnbull’s mouth, his non political smarts again deserted him. The default when answering ANY questions to Barrister style verbosity is not only an own goal, it does not help Turnbull in an era where cut through delivery is the name of the game, more so nowadays in the gotcha 24/7 media cycle.

If Credlin says Abbott was not aware of this issue then that is it in my opinion. Given her power, the micro managing, her over reaching remit as Chief of Staff, there is simply no way arguably Abbott is not telling the truth even if some documented evidence exists. The Press Gallery know full well how Minister’s and the PMO works.

A Senior Advisor’s emails to the PMO [if it was a SA] would have – should have ended up with their PMO counterpart, and then forwarded on to the Chief of Staff. There are internal staffing protocols that have existed for decades, period.

The Gallery again have invoked the term “smoking gun” as they try yet again to tear at their nemesis, the MP they loathe and want kicked out of public life, Abbott.

The lack of critical commentary on their messiah’s consistent, now systemic inability to give short, concise and cut through answers is again missing. Hypocrisy and ‘barracking’ is still all the collective way for the Turnbull Gallery cheer squad.

The thumping of the desks applause from the backbench [some of it] for Abbott last night would have the Oakes and crew in a furious rage. Abbott rising is like arsenic for the Gallery elites.

Turnbull needs to more disciplined. He also needs to stop traducing a man who has since being deposed acted reasonably, when he could have done real damage if he was so inclined.

Showing Abbott even a modicum of decency and respect has been absent since the day Turnbull took over the leadership.

If these two Leaders worked together they’d be a solid team, and would, could demolish this Shorten led social engineering rabble.

Abbott is not blame free in all this if one is objective.

Seriously, who in their right mind wants Wong as Foreign Affairs Minister or Dreyfus anywhere near the AGs Department.

This really is a mess thast must be addressed, and given Turnbull has had this morning his senior NSW wets put up a ‘pushing back Party reform again’ in NSW for this weekends meeting, Turnbull and his ideological leftists like Sinodinas, the inept Payne and Hawke have just thrown gasoline on the fire.

Turnbull really needs to get out more and listen to the base of this party he leads cos everything he has and has not done to date just hammers home the political optics of a PM who is so very uncomfortable leading a centre right political party.

In comparison with the ditherer-in-chief, we have this: Tony Abbott speech warns on lack of power to reform. The article begins:

Tony Abbott has backed Scott Morrison’s warning about the number of Australian households that do not pay tax, in a major speech that steps up the case for budget and economic reform despite the challenges of the new parliament.

The former prime minister rebuked Labor for its “relentless negativity” and urged Malcolm Turnbull to fight for the Liberal Party’s core beliefs rather than giving up on spending cuts.

Mr Abbott defended his legacy, including his firm line on business welfare when Qantas sought a commonwealth guarantee, given the airline announced a bumper profit this week without the help of government aid.

He also warned of a lack of government power to enact reform, given that Julia Gillard’s administration was about to legislate 90 per cent of its bills with its alliance with the Greens but that this fell to 80 per cent in the next parliament when Labor and the Senate crossbench blocked the Abbott government’s plans.

“In other words, it was not the hung parliament that suffered from ‘relentless negativity’,” Mr Abbott said.

“This will also be a challenging parliament for reformers because every difficult change will have to run the gauntlet of political parties that pander to grievance.”

And his final word:

“Our challenge is not to move closer to Labor in the hope of being a smaller target,” he said.

“It’s to make the differences crystal clear so that voters can choose a party that puts its faith in empowered citizens rather than empowered officials.”

There are a few of us out here who might agree with this from the comments:

Tony Abbott is still the predominant voice in politics which speaks with the most clarity of purpose.

Now that voters have had a year of Turnbull, his waffling, meandering policy, his lost sense of purpose and his lack of performance … surely there is no one left who would still prefer Turnbull over a return to Abbott as the national leader.

Well, other than Niki Savva, there is probably no one left like that at all.

That Malcolm is a dud with the worst political instincts in Australian political history was evident from a long way back. That he is shallow to the point that he actually believes global warming is a problem only emphasises how pathetic he is. That he has no idea how an economy works was clear long before he said during the GFC that he would have done the same as Labor. That he knows nothing about our infrastructure needs was made plane by his inability to lay a rhetorical glove on the NBN. But while all this is plain as day to me and thee, to the man himself, he is all that stands between us and ….

It should of course be what stands between us and another Labor Government. What he really thinks is that what he stands in the way of is something worse by his lights, a return of Tony Abbott. I’m afraid articles such as this How the Liberals could win with Abbott will only make him dig in more.

But Malcolm’s crass and obnoxious willingness to take the ship down with the captain comes across even more in reading these absurd post-election polling statistics from the other day:

The latest Morgan poll of 3587 electors, conducted yesterday following the weekend election, shows 51 per cent regard Mr Turnbull as better prime minister, just ahead of Opposition Leader Bill Shorten on 47 per cent.

That’s a decrease of six percentage points in a month for Mr Turnbull and a 23 point increase for Mr Shorten in the same period. But Mr Turnbull is clearly preferred as Liberal leader over Tony Abbott by 71 per cent to 25 per cent.

But when only those who identify as Coalition voters are asked who they would prefer as party leader, the result becomes closer — 60 per cent for Mr Turnbull and 38 per cent for Mr Abbott.

Whatever doubts we might have about the numbers, suppose they are right. That means that 38% of Coalition voters prefer Abbott. That is a very large part of the Coalition’s voter base. Anyone with an ounce of common sense, never mind the slightest whiff of political calculation, would understand that to strengthen the party and its appeal, those 38% should be appeased. Instead, he remains stubborn to the point of mulish in not even considering a return to cabinet of the man who for many of us was the main reason making the Coalition worth our vote. Now that everyone can see how politically stupid Malcolm is – even those who have tried to defend him in public since the election – the facts of political life will need to be explained. My worry is that he really is just as stupid as he seems.

The fact is that Malcolm in the election just past ran against Tony Abbott. Had he been as hard and angry dealing with Bill Shorten and Labor it would have been a different story. But it was all anti-Abbott and hardly much of an anti-ALP.

My doubts about whether Tony will come back were increased by Peta Credlin’s answer to Andrew Bolt about whether he would try for another go as PM. She said, “Why would he?” Why would he when there were so many ungrateful and politically stupid fools that remain inside the party room. And perhaps outside as well. In this story, 2016 Federal Election: Australia faces another ‘week’ without government, we find this:

The latest Morgan poll of 3587 electors, conducted yesterday following the weekend election, shows 51 per cent regard Mr Turnbull as better prime minister, just ahead of Opposition Leader Bill Shorten on 47 per cent.

That’s a decrease of six percentage points in a month for Mr Turnbull and a 23 point increase for Mr Shorten in the same period. But Mr Turnbull is clearly preferred as Liberal leader over Tony Abbott by 71 per cent to 25 per cent.

But when only those who identify as Coalition voters are asked who they would prefer as party leader, the result becomes closer — 60 per cent for Mr Turnbull and 38 per cent for Mr Abbott.

Well, if that’s what they think, they got what they deserved. But the notion that there is a more conservative Liberal Party just waiting to be formed from the ashes of the present mob is just fantasy.