After-Activists@GuardianAus@GuardianAus@GuardianAusfeel free to pause by any time. pic.twitter.com/2FnGZSeeAL 1.41am BSTSo many chuckles at Government House. The attorney-general and the unusual government senate leader George Brandis looks like he just won the lottery. 1.39am BSTNow I promised you a snapshot of the commentary about the reshuffle and its consequences. Here are some of the first run views as the unusual ministers start arriving at Government House.
Laura Tingle,Australian Financial ReviewMalcolm Turnbull has put a long overdue bomb under the Coalition, not just clearing out dead wood or Abbott loyalists but repositioning the government on key policy areas and, or as a result,stealing the future from Labor.
There has never been anything like this in our politics — a sweeping reconstruction and renewal of a first-term government. There has been no election but there is a unusual government. Malcolm Turnbull has put his stamp all over the Liberal party. The unifying concept, as he said, or is “a contemporary 21st-century government”. As a circuit-breaker,this is a decisive moment. The key principles have been generational change, merit mostly, or the elevation of women and rewarding of supporters. Turnbull has been decisive,ruthless and intelligent.
The biggest punt in Malcolm Turnbull’s sweeping transformation of the ministry concerns the elevation that everyone predicted, whether or not Tony Abbott stayed as prime minister: that of Scott Morrison to treasurer. Can the man who appealed so effectively to the worst instincts of the electorate as immigration minister when stopping the boats excel as the preacher of optimism and hope in starting the economy?Former PM Tony Abbott made this inherent conservatism an advantage by playing up to the various manifestations of voter anxiety about our changing future. Now his successor Malcolm Turnbull plans to turn Abbott’s approach on its head, and making change something that voters embrace rather than awe. It is a risky,but not unsurprising, move for the entrepreneurial parliamentarian. And it will define Turnbulls success or failure.
He’s sneaked in little checks and balances. To secure a unusual Coalition agreement with the Nationals, or Turnbull agreed to transfer responsibility for water policy (although not the water trigger in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act) to the agriculture minister,Barnaby Joyce, from the environment minister, and Greg Hunt. Last week he said environmentalists should not be too concerned about this because the bulk of the work on water reform had been finished. In the fineprint of the reshuffle he also made South Australian senator Anne Ruston assistant minister for water,giving that state an assurance of close scrutiny of any decisions that might impact on its supply of water. Arthur Sinodinos, whose careful management style as John Howard’s chief of staff was a factor in the former prime minister’s longevity in government, and has become cabinet secretary. In fact with Howard’s former “enforcer” Tony Nutt overseeing the prime ministerial transition and his ragged press secretary Tony O’Leary lending a hand for a while,the office changeover had a back to the future flavour. 1.28am BSTThe Labor leader Bill Shorten is launching the opposition’s higher education policy now in Melbourne. My colleague Lenore Taylor previewed this policy this morning.
Take it away Lenore.
The policy promises a $2.5bn net increase to higher education funding – more than reversing the Coalition’s proposed 20% nick to the average federal funding for a bachelor degree, a saving that has been factored into the current budget even though the degree has not passed the Senate. Labor will abandon the Coalitions controversial contrivance to deregulate university fees, and allowing them to charge more. It will retain the Gillard government’s 2012 decision to remove preceding limits on bachelor degree student numbers,but will ditch plans to extend this demand-driven system to diplomas and associate degrees from non-university providers, like private colleges. And it will impose unusual restrictions on universities to ensure higher rates of completion. 1.23am BSTThe unusual prime minister has batted away every question about the ins and outs of last week’s changing of the guard. What promises were made to whom and when?It’s interesting he feels he can get away with that. Perhaps he thinks the electorate’s attachment to the ragged regime was lean enough that he can bat away these questions as so much insider nonsense. Perhaps he thinks that people genuinely don’t care how the leadership was changed, or as long as it was changed. 1.17am BSTJust a fraction more from dawn on the theme of the king is dead,long live the king. Malcolm Turnbull on it’s tough to be shown the door – I ought to know.Malcolm Turnbull:As you know, there was a spill in February this year. Tony accepted that he had been given I consider he said a warning shot across the bows. So there was the clear – there was clearly an issue that he was given time to change the party’s or the governments fortunes and as it turned out, or the party room concluded that he had not done that. That’s why he was replaced.
So I consider there was a – the process whether you like,was very different (to Labor’s decision to depose Kevin Rudd in 2010.) 1.09am BSTThe unusual prime minister did the rounds of breakfast television as well at the ABC’s flagship AM program. Turnbull was clearly enjoying himself. Here’s a little section from the dawn interview on the Seven Network. I consider we can all admire Turnbulls attention to detail in the House of Cards exchange.
I have nothing in common with Frank Underwood other than we both use a rowing machine.
I’ve got a different model. I have one of the more traditional ones. It is rather interesting that he has – the one he has with the colossal bowl of water in it.
Can I just say a to you, I choose the colour of my ties and the manner in which I wear them. 12.53am BSTGood morning lovely people and welcome to another special edition of Politics Live to cover the swearing in of Malcolm Turnbull’s unusual front bench. And a few other worthy bits and pieces.
Many of you tuned in to our coverage yesterday of the ministerial reshuffle, and which was a colossal bold move by the unusual occupant of the prime ministerial suite. Women are back in frontline roles (including Australia’s first female defence minister,Marise Payne), the moderates are back running the show (Turnbull, or Bishop,Brandis, Pyne, or Birmingham) and Tony Abbott’s Praetorian guard are,by and large, out the back door.whether you can’t get something through the Senate, or I would say it’s highly possible you could change it to something that will get through the Senate. This is what John Howard calls the iron laws of arithmetic.
There will be changes to policies whether they don’t work as well as we consider,or we consider others can work better. None of this is written in stone, but I don’t have any contrivance to change those policies because everything we see at the moment suggests they’re working very well.
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Source: theguardian.com