A pre-budget spill is on the cards

By ABC's Barrie Cassidy Friday 27 February 2015

Photo: Turnbull has in recent days pointedly contradicted his leader. (AAP: Lukas Coch)

The way ministers are now contradicting their Prime Minister indicates a more short term strategy for his removal. Can they really go on playing this game all the way through to July? Barrie Cassidy writes.

When the Prime Minister allowed his frustrations with the Human Rights Commission to career out of control this week, he got three ticks from his backbench ... tick, tick, tick.

Some of them, in conversations with journalists, started counting down his leadership, and suddenly they were musing about a pre-budget timetable.

The fact is that ever since the spill motion, Tony Abbott has made it too easy for his detractors: those on his own team as well as those in opposition.

That Abbott missed an opportunity to soberly and meticulously use the commission's report to embarrass Labor has been well documented on this site. By going in so hard against the commission president Gillian Triggs, he ended up embarrassing his own party.

Malcolm Turnbull then stepped into "the sensible centre" with a calm and reassuring message that the children in detention should not be forgotten in all of this. The Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, ran a similar line on ABC's AM, saying that the stoush "certainly is a distraction from the issue at hand, which is the report on children in detention".

And when the Prime Minister followed the lead of the right-wing shock jocks and chastised Muslim leaders for not doing enough to condemn terrorists - indeed, questioning their sincerity even when they do - the Foreign Minister again delivered a different message.

She told AM that the Government was working very closely with the mosques around the country:

They (the Muslim leaders) are working hand in glove with the Australian Government to ensure that we can stop young people being radicalised and supporting terrorist organisations.

Turnbull has in recent days pointedly contradicted his leader on other issues.

Abbott described the leaked letter from the Liberal Party's honorary treasurer, Philip Higginson, as a "storm in a teacup". But Turnbull told reporters the central issue in that letter - the need to better manage the party's finances - was "absolutely critical".

"The more open and transparent you are, the better," he said.

"The best antidote to suspicion or anxiety, questions about propriety even, is sunlight. Just put the facts out there."

While Abbott thumbed his nose at the honorary treasurer, seemingly indifferent to his views, Turnbull said that Higginson was "a very experienced company director":

He is a corporate governance expert. He's regarded as an authority in that field, so I'm sure the federal executive will pay very careful attention to his proposals.

Turnbull spoke similarly of Gillian Triggs:

I've known Gillian Triggs for many years. She's a very distinguished international legal academic.

The contradictions with their leader are rolling off the ministers' tongues. These contributions don't have the feel to them of a six-month strategy. They seem more short-term than that.

Can they really go on playing this game all the way through to July? Can the Government really indulge Abbott and allow him to stumble on through yet another budget?

What if - as many of them expect will happen - they move against him soon afterwards? Wouldn't that simply be a vote of no confidence in a second budget, with just one left before the next election?

Can they really afford to have everything seen through the prism of a vulnerable grip on the leadership for months yet to come?

The latest Newspoll implied that brand Liberal is still in play even if the leader has lost the respect of the vast majority of voters. But can they go on until July exposing that brand to further ridicule?

These are tough questions for a party that innately wants to be above their more ruthless opponents when it comes to leadership; tough questions for a party that wants to give a man owed so much a fair go. The question is though, for how long can they postpone answering those tough questions?

If not next week, or the next sitting fortnight after that (March 16-26), then they are effectively locked in for many more months.

Barrie Cassidy is the presenter of the ABC program Insiders. He writes a weekly column for The Drum.

A pre-budget spill is on the cards - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)