The Curious Story of Malcolm Turnbull, the Incredible Shrinking Man in the Top Hat by Andrew P Street

Author:Andrew P Street [Street, Andrew P]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2016-09-11T16:00:00+00:00

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1 The treasurer certainly seemed to have more clout than did largely ceremonial roles like deputy leader (Julie Bishop) or, thankfully, deputy prime minister, a position always held by the leader of the Nationals (under Abbott the deputy PM was first Warren Truss and then Barnaby Joyce), which carries with it around about the same power as Vice Principal of Narnia.

2 Actually, this is not uncommon, as surprisingly few recent treasurers have had economic qualifications: Morrison’s predecessor Joe Hockey was a lawyer, as was Howard-era treasurer Peter Costello and John Howard himself. Labor treasurers have generally been more credentialled: while Rudd/Gillard-era treasurer Wayne Swan had Bachelor of Arts (Hons), majoring in political science, both Chris Bowen and John Dawkins had degrees in economics while Ralph Willis held a Bachelor of Commerce. Then again, Paul Keating never even finished high school.

3 Their first call would presumably have been to Peter Debnam, member for Vaucluse, thus saving Turnbull the inconvenience of having to leave his swanky Point Piper digs. Of course, that would have deprived the NSW Liberals of another future state party leader who was to launch the party to electoral defeat and slink away following a humiliating leadership challenge.

4 This was before the Wentworth preselection stoush of 2003, at a time when state politics might still have been worth Turnbull’s while.

5 It wasn’t the last time that Morrison was to receive condemnation for a tourism-related mess: after leaving the NSW Liberal Party gig to head up Tourism Australia, Morrison oversaw the ‘Where the bloody hell are you?’ international tourism campaign—a notorious flop that bought him into conflict with federal tourism minister Fran Bailey and eventually ended in him being sacked in 2006.

6 There’s a chapter coming that goes into this at downright unpleasant length—get excited!—but it’s important to remember that Christmas Island is owned by Australia and is technically subject to Australian law; Nauru is theoretically a sovereign nation, although one that is funded almost entirely by the Australian government; and Manus Island is part of Papua New Guinea. This gives the people on them different legal standings as far as Australia is concerned, although the actual treatment seems hellishly standardised across centres.

7 Refoulement—the return of victims of persecution to their persecutors—is forbidden under the terms of the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner’s 1951 Refugee Convention. So not exactly a new law, in other words.

8 To be fair, the ‘progressive’ Australia Institute presumably knew how enthusiastically the government was going to dismiss its suggestions when it titled its May 2015 paper ‘It’s the Revenue Stupid: Ideas for a brighter budget’. The gist of their plan was to modify the benefits of the negative gearing of investment properties, which was about to become an even less popular idea.

9 There was plenty of support from the business community, however, who declared that a GST rise was the ‘magic bullet’ to pay for the corporate tax cuts it would very much like.

10 We’ll plunge into the election-platform battle that was superannuation and negative

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