A major question that will confront us all on July 2 will be whether to vote for the party led by Malcolm Turnbull. James Allan and I really have had an exchange of letters over this issue that have now been published at Quadrant Online. It goes without saying that no one will vote for Malcolm Turnbull. The question is should one vote against Labor. That is, which of Malcolm with the 43 plus the Nationals or Bill Shorten and the Labor Party with Tanya and the rest is less worse than the other. This is how Jim starts his letter to me:

I have one question for you. If you see all decisions as snapshots – one-off calls between two choices on the current table – then here’s what follows. Presumably you will always opt for the least bad choice (and I grant you that Turnbull is less bad than Shorten for us small government, right-of-centre types), without an eye to longer-term consequences. But my query is, what’s wrong with a longer view?

This is how I begin my reply:

Let me begin with a story I have told before, which I wrote about just before the spill that replaced Tony Abbott with Malcolm Turnbull:

When I used to work in Canberra, our offices backed onto the Liberal Party headquarters, and I was asked one time, even before Malcolm entered Parliament, what I thought about him. My answer was that if I was in the constituency that would decide the fate of the next election, and my vote was the one that would put him in or out, that I would hesitate about which way to go. That was then. Today I would have no doubt.

Since the post was titled, “I would never vote for a Coalition led by Malcolm Turnbull” you can see which way I would have gone. You can find the whole thing at the Catallaxy blog via the link above, so I do have some history in thinking about these issues:

But that was then.

There are no good answers, but you can read his and mine at the link.

I am so far from thinking I would like to teach the Libs a lesson by voting against them that nothing seems more bizarre than voting Labor as a corrective. There is no question that if the Libs had known then what they know now, they would not have installed Malcolm in a pig’s fit. Utterly useless in every way it is imaginable for a leader of a conservative party, who is now more likely to lose the upcoming election than Abbott ever was. If you can see the governments of Victoria and Queensland and you still prefer Labor for three years, then I have nothing to say to you. But perhaps Tony Abbott can persuade you to think again [no link to story]:

By losing control of our borders, building overpriced school halls and installing home insulation batts that caught fire, the Rudd-Gillard government became notorious for its inherent incompetence and waste.

By introducing a carbon tax and a mining tax, it demonstrated its addiction to big government.

Just how much lasting damage was done by the worst government in our history is only now starting to become apparent.

But Labor hasn’t learned and would do it all again – and more.

They may be incapable of learning which is the worst part of all.

Such tedious, tiresome drivel from The Oz, this time from Janet Albrechtson. She has never been much of an analyst, but at least she used to be on the same side on most things and so I would more often than not get through a column she wrote. But now that she has taken the Murdoch shilling and enlisted in one of the anti-Abbott regiments, I only read as far as I need to so as to work out the lay of the land, and then go to the comments, most of which see things the same way as me. I would have fallen into line more or less immediately after the transition if there had actually been a line. But he is not called Lord Waffle for nothing. I am in sympathy with the comments below, not quite in sequence but these are ten out of the first twelve that came up.

I) I bet Albrechtson, Devine, Savva, PVO, Kroger, Reith, and so have all been Wined and Dined by Malcom. Ross Cameron was and he was so impressed Malcom gave him a Book when he left for home.

II) Janet is right about Abbott. But what policies are we getting from Malcolm? Sweet nothing. And then today, we hear of his masterstroke: the states will add to our taxation burdens! Hallelujah! Problems solved. More government bureaucracy, more government controls, more taxes to pay for more bureaucrats. And not one word about reducing spending, which Scott Morrison told us is Australia’s major problem. First, Malcolm floats the lead balloons of increased GST, then increased capital gains tax, then the shafting of negative gearing, then theft of our superannuation…and having failed with all of those, now we get state taxes! Malcolm doesn’t have a clue what to do, so he shoves the problem onto the states! He is blundering from one mess to another. It’s time for the Liberals to jettison their Labor-ite PM and get someone who can deliver on their conservative promises and principles.

III) So there’s not enough money. But we won’t cut spending. We’ll just rearrange the deck chairs. And if you don’t look carefully you won’t realise that a swifty’s been pulled and we’re all going down.

Good one Mal.

IV) Much as I detest Malcolm Turnbull, making the States more autonomous is a good idea. But it might take a bit more preparation than todays anouncement.

V) Finally Malcolm has united Australia. From the left and from the conservative side there’s at last consensus about the PM. His latest Tax plan is a dud. Universally hated. Good one Malcolm. Losing the next election is getting closer. Bring out the Utes. Buy up nappies. Get Malcolm a hanky.

VI) Does free speech still exist in Australia?

Is Australia still a democracy?

Tony is an elected member of parliament and represents his constituents he, I and everyone else can speak on whatever suits them!

Why are you going down this path Janet, has your partner Michael Kroger enlisted you in the peril exercise of gagging free speech in this country, why does this not extend to Howard, Reith, Costello et al!

For years Turnbull and his shadow Lucy Macbeth have undermined Abbott and now you appear to have joined their social engineering experiment along with the rest of our pathetic and lazy journalists/commentators in this country.

VII) The comments below reflect conservatives’ frustration at having the party usurped by a weak wet waffler. Who wants to reward bad behaviour? Not I. Minority parties are looking good.

VIII) “wants it known that just because we don’t know his economic plan, that doesn’t mean there isn’t one” Exactly, just because Tony didn’t know to watch his back didn’t mean Turnbull wasn’t there all ready to ……… ? He did have a devious plan after all, Tony found out too late.

IX) Somehow this Prime Minister reminds me of Julia Gillard: not up to the job. Both of them have high personal ambition but no ability to match it.

X) Perhaps tomorrow Janet can explain this latest fiasco announced today by Malcolm Turnbull which in one stroke has lost the election for the Coalition.

Poor Scott Morrison.

The Libs are evens to lose, and what a shipwreck that would be. They may be setting up a line of excuses, but having created the instability in the first place, no one around here will blame anyone but Malcolm himself.

The only thing that makes it worth voting for a Turnbull government is that Tony Abbott is still there on the backbench. It remains obscure to the point of invisibility why Malcolm does not do everything he can to bring Abbott into the tent. The only things that Abbott has said is what a good government he had led. And since it was a LIBERAL government – you know, one on the same side as Malcolm is supposed to be – I cannot see why Tony’s triumph’s are not also Malcolm’s triumphs, or can at least be counted on the same side of the ledger.

It is Turnbull, however, who wishes to make this a distinction as large as it can possibly be. A political leader that does not try to combine everyone, to smooth over the differences, to make the machine run as well as possible, is hopeless at the job. If Turnbull is trying to deny credit to Tony for his achievements, it can only be because Malcolm understands himself to be the undersized and insignificant nonentity he is.

All of which is brought to mind by that Left-Labor Turnbull shill from The Oz, not Niki in this instance but Van Oncelot in a column he titles, Federal election 2016: sniping Tony Abbott could tip scales. My own wording is along the lines of “Sniping at Tony Abbott could tip scales” as the following selection of comments on his column might indicate. These were the ten most recent comments when I logged in, all of whom see things in the same way as I do. But in saying this, please also look at the last of these comments below.

I) How did I miss it?

Of course – it’s all Abbott’s fault!! Must be his sniping.. because all of use can wax lyrical about the enormous achievements of Turnbull. Such as … ummm … and there was the … aahhh … Oh and the … geez what was it again?

There has never been a better time to … i give up

II) Nothing to do with Abbott. Far more likely is Turnbull’s poor performance, his high handed treatment of Morrison, the feeling the country is now run by an unelected dynasty, the splitting of The Liberal Party, the left wing trying to gain control, who back the same beliefs as Labor, and the outrage by so many, of the removal of a sitting PM, which they consider, their job, if so inclined. In contrast Labor stood by their leader, no matter how poor his figures,and present as a disciplined group, compared to The Libs. A situation the Libs gifted to themselves.

III) What a load of rot. Tony the Australian Sniper…give us all a break. When are the editors going to step in and end this vendetta against Abbott? There’s a powerful difference between cool-headed analysis and heated vitriol, and Niki and Peter are giving us plenty of the latter.

IV) PVO I think the only sniping is coming from the likes of yourself, Niki Savva and a majority of the media prepared to analyse every word, eye twitch, smile or whatever Mr Abbott does, todays story about stealing a girls wave is the sort of rubbish that is being printed these days.

V) Two years ago one could have written the headline: sniping Turnbull could tip scales. You reap what you sow, Mr Van Onselen. Yes, you. Aka: spare us the hypocrisy.

VI) Rest assured that a sniping Vanonsolon won’t matter a fig, as he rates almost zero on the influence scale.

VII) If Turnbull wins the coming election then no future PM or government will be willing to take unpopular but necessary fiscal decisions. We will go down the pathway of populist tosh until the budget situation becomes intolerable and then political fireworks break out.

VIII) Why do you say “Of course” Turnbull won’t emulate Abbott’s win? Is it because Abbott was not as bad as Rudd, or because Turnbull is not as good as Abbott?

IX) While Turnbull is busy differentiating himself, he may as well bring back the mining tax, dismantle border protection and undo the free trade agreements. As for me, I will make my own differentiation at the ballot box.

X) I am finding it hard to comprehend the people in this forum who are saying they will vote for Labor over the LNP because of Turnbull. I too have not been very impressed with Turnbull so far, however, the prospect of a Labor government with the likes of Shorten, Plibersek and Bowen trying to run the country terrifies me! If that mob get control, Australia will never get out of debt in our lifetimes and what sort of legacy is that to leave to our children?

Funnily enough, I am on the same side as MR X, but I have to say that Malcolm seems to be doing everything he can to drive people like myself away. But so long as Tony is there, and his most important mates along with him, there remains no alternative comes the election.

From the Herald-Sun, sent to me by my wife so I cannot link. But I can still type:

The star of a US TV political comedy says she has been left “dumbstruck” that Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull has adopted one of its “meaningless” slogans.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who plays a US vice-president in Veep, made the remarks on her twitter account about Mr. Turnbull’s adoption of the line “continuity and change”.

The writer of the HBO series, Simon Blackwell, accused the Prime Minister of copying the slogan.

“In season four we came up with the most meaningless election slogan we could think of. Now adopted by Australian PM, Blackwell tweeted in astonishment.

This seems totally unfair. Malcolm is more than capable of coming up with the most meaningless election slogans all on his own. After the next election, he can take up a new post as a comedy writer in Hollywood. But I have to admit that I find this fits perfectly into my own image of the depth and breadth the PM has shown in everything else he has done.