I thought Malcolm’s strongest feature was as the Great Communicator. So why this now from Robert Gottliebsen: How Malcolm Turnbull can lift his media game. This is the message he wishes to convey:

Turnbull’s failure to sell his message is hurting his campaign, he’ll need to sharpen the script if he wants to cut through.

The problem is that it’s not “his message” but Tony’s. Nevertheless, Gottliebsen seeks to offer advice:

Given Bill Shorten knows the electronic media game backwards and forwards, there is an uneven contest. It’s no surprise that Shorten is winning in the opinion polls.

I realised that Turnbull does not know the secret of communicating on radio as I replayed yesterday’s interview with Alan Jones.

I have been around the radio game for many decades, so, with respect Mr. Prime Minister, let me give you a few hints.

I’m afraid, at this stage, it is all instinct. All you can do is let Malcolm be Malcolm in getting Tony’s message out and hope for the best.

We all know that Malcolm Turnbull would not lift a finger to stop illegal immigration if things were up to him. The boats would just roll on in and nothing of consequence would be done. If you are looking for a reminder, you can find one here. He is a shallow narcissist, but most importantly represents none of the values that brought the Coalition to government in 2013. In contrast, I do not know what Bill Shorten himself believes, other than that he believes with all his heart that the polling shows that stopping the boats is a major aim across Australia. Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for us, many of his Parliamentary colleagues prefer virtue signalling to winning the next election.

Here, however, is what we find today: Federal election 2016: Turnbull leaves Shorten at sea over refugees.

Malcolm Turnbull has captured the necessary spirit on asylum-seekers for a Coalition leader and confronted suggestions that he is “soft on boats”.

There was no lawyerly dissembling for the Prime Minister yesterday; no awkward body language nor any weasel words as he not only defended Peter ­Dutton’s unvarnished reality about the financial cost of taking refugees, but also refined and ­extended the argument.

Turnbull heartily embraced the Immigration Minister’s “brutal” and “no sugar-coated” view of ­illegal boat arrivals and the cost of caring for refugees after Bill ­Shorten tried to turn border protection into a positive for Labor.

He might well have picked up one of Tony’s old set of speaking notes as he left for the press conference. Even as dense as he is, he knows that in the party he is the nominal leader of, he has no choice but to take this line. The slightest softness and he might well be cut down overnight by the party room. But as the next para in the story puts it:

Labor hopes to prove Turnbull inconsistent and insincere on ­social issues he once supported.

And that’s just the point. Malcolm’s own personal beliefs count for absolutely nothing. This is the view of the party room and it is absolutely united on this one issue, which may yet be the decisive issue in this election. There is then the National Party after that.

The idea of voting out the Coalition to teach those traitorous 52 Liberals a lesson is so bizarrely self-defeating that it leaves me dumbfounded. Rather than being Machiavellian – daringly clever in achieving some subtle but desirable conspiratorial end – it is the absolute opposite. It can never make sense to give your enemies a victory they don’t deserve. Losing is not a form of winning. Malcolm being the empty suit he is, will soon find the international environment dominated by a new President of the United States who is in many important respects, the American Tony Abbott. Malcolm will therefore adjust his views to suit the time, and one can only hope that sometime in 2017, he will be given his own gold (Cartier) watch and shoved out the Parliamentary door. Malcolm’s authority is diminishing each day as others begin to see him for what he is. There is so much political insanity around, getting the Libs back may be one of the most crucial election results in Australian history.

Peter Hendy is running for his life in Eden-Monaro and is likely to lose his seat after only one term. What interests me is that no one ever mentions that he had been the Chief Executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry for many years where he had been my CEO. Is that not seen as a qualification for those wondering who to vote for? Apparently not. This, however, is from the comments thread where Andrew Bolt discussed Hendy cannot now demand loyalty given that he was one of the leaders of the 54 who deposed Abbott.

I live in Eden Monaro and can confirm that Hendy has been MIA since being elected. Mr Invisible (or is that Dr Invisible?). The only time we heard from him is when we discover that he has been spending his time counting numbers for Turnbull. Instead of spending time getting himself known in the electorate, which might give him a chance of re-election even if things were going well for the Liberals, he has been behaving like a political heavy inside Parliament House and at his own house. Quite obviously, he has not made the transition from being a Political Staffer (he worked for Julie Bishop and Peter Reith) to an Elected Member where his first priority must be his electorate. As you say, he only won the seat on the back of the pro-Abbott swing and because of the inordinate amount of time Tony Abbott spent in the electorate getting Hendy known. Mike Kelly is not my cup of tea but he has exceeding high name recognition throughout the large electorate. Hendy has the personality of a damp rag and needed Abbott’s confidence and exuberance to lead the way on his public appearances. What a way to say thanks. I will not be rewarding Hendy for his treachery.

On the left, they vote as they are directed. Doesn’t work the same among conservatives.

If it is still possible, someone must run in Wentworth as part of the “I will resign as soon as elected” party which will have only a single policy: if elected I will resign the moment the Liberal Party chooses a new leader. Is it too late? This is from Andrew Bolt:

Turnbull Government ministers and influential backbenchers at first did not believe me when I reported that Malcolm Turnbull had quietly had a Greens candidate, Lin Hatfield Dodds, made one of the deputy secretaries of his Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, in charge of his social policy.

Incredible, but true.

Here is how Hatfield Dodd’s job was first advertised, suggesting the power this Greens candidate will now have with Turnbull, whose slogans shape the job description.

Go to the link and read it all. Perhaps Labor really is the lesser of two evils.

Alerted by Andrew Bolt, there is a throwaway comment in Miranda Divine’s column today in the Daily Telegraph: RAGE OF THE TINY DELCONS.

Just 14 per cent say they are less likely to vote for the Turnbull-led Coalition. That’s the delcon community, small but noisy.

Since there are no Green or Labor people in that number, only those who might vote Coalition, that seems like 14% of the 50% of the country likely to vote for the Libs, that is around a quarter of those who voted for the Libs last time who are now thinking about other options.