Herald Sun
10 April 2017
Andrew Bolt
Plenty of trouble for Malcolm Turnbull today, who seems in a death spiral.
Ray Hadley dumps Treasurer Scott Morrison after four years:
Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison has been dumped as a weekly guest by Sydney-based radio presenter Ray Hadley…
Hadley, based in 2GB in Sydney but who broadcasts nationally through the Macquarie Radio network, … made the announcement to his listeners this morning after he found out that Mr Morrison was about to appear on ABC radio in Melbourne with presenter Jon Faine.
Clearly angry, Hadley said Mr Morrison’s office had told him he was not available to do his regular spot with him this morning because he was “travelling.”
Hadley was about to tell his listeners that they would not be hearing the Treasurer today because he was in transit when he was notified that at the same time Mr Morrison was appearing — in the studio — in Melbourne.
“He’s lied to me, or his staff have lied,” Hadley said.
“If he wants to dud me then he’ll get dudded every chance he gets.”
Hadley said the reason Mr Morrison may have wanted to avoid the appearance may have been because the Coalition had just lost 11 Newspolls in a row under Malcolm Turnbull.
Newspoll confirms a landslide is on:
Older Australians are deserting Malcolm Turnbull’s government in a powerful swing that is fuelling the rise of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, with the federal Coalition suffering a 10 per cent fall in support among voters older than 50 since the last election.
The government is also under threat from a backlash in Queensland and Western Australia, where voters are recording the strongest shifts in a nationwide trend that has the Coalition trailing Labor by 47 per cent to 53 per cent in two-party terms.
Big swings against Liberals in NSW by-elections on Saturday:
The Berejiklian government recorded a swing against it of 24 per cent in the Sydney seat of Manly which has been vacated by former premier Mike Baird… In the nearby seat of North Shore and the Central Coast seat of Gosford, there were swings to Labor of 15.5 per cent and 12.2 per cent respectively.
An internal review warns Turnbull not to offend his base and to get a plan:
Former Liberal federal director Andrew Robb’s Review of the 2016 Federal Election, obtained exclusively by The Daily Telegraph, has recommended the Prime Minister, his senior leadership team, the federal executive and senior party figures change their campaign techniques, step up research, focus on ethnic voters and call out Labor’s lies, to lift their performance at the next federal election in two years’ time.
It also urges the Turnbull Government to respect the Liberal Party’s core supporters, amid concerns they deserted the Party in droves, refusing to man polling booths or donate to the party, furious with the Government’s proposed superannuation changes.
“While governing for all, at all times respect, and be seen to be respecting our base,” the review states…
Addressing criticisms the Government has no narrative, the Review recommends the Liberals “formulate a clear plan, priorities and build a supporting narrative of where a Coalition is taking Australia.”
And Tony Abbott says the Turnbull Government must give supporters something to fight for:
The former PM said the Liberal Party had to give the public something to hope for and give people in the Liberal heartland “something to fight for”.
He said the federal government should prioritise affordable power prices.
“The best thing we can do there is stop subsidising these windmills because they’re making power less reliable and less affordable,” Mr Abbott told 2GB’s Alan Jones.
“The other thing we can do is fight for senate reform because good government is becoming almost impossible in this country, Alan.
“You can never get a populist crossbench to vote for less spending, less regulation and less tax on the most productive people in our society.”
Mr Abbott reiterated his support for a proposal first put forward by John Howard in 2003, which would amend Section 57 of the Constitution so that if the Senate rejected legislation twice three months apart, a joint sitting of both houses could be held without need for a double dissolution election.
(Thanks to readers Peter of Bellevue Hill, PSFR and others.)
