So, Who Wants to Captain This Sinking Ship?
Before the (Coal) Dust Settles
As you might’ve heard, on the 3rd of May (henceforth Liberation Day) Dark Lord Dutton was unceremoniously yeeted from his seat (and thus, the Liberal Party leadership). What happens now is that the party will meet in the next few weeks, after the election result is finalised, to elect a new party leader.
Whilst many online are describing this period as the ‘end of an era’ with regards to Dutton’s particular brand of divisive, shitty politics, I reckon the reality probably is much darker – as I suggested in my previous post.
Sadly, the Liberal Party’s scramble for a new leader isn’t just a political process; it’s a darkly comedic spectacle revealing a party potentially doubling down on the very things that they just got bollocked for at the polls. Rather than act with unity (which shouldn’t be that hard, there’s only 40 of them left…), the disastrous LNP result precipitated a political bloodbath with everyone from Jacinta Price to Matt Canavan whipping out their daggers as they jockey for place in the new pecking order.
The Contenders
Angus’ The Numbers’ Taylor
The leading favourite appears to be (and I can’t believe I’m going to say this) Angus Taylor. Taylor is the shadow treasurer and played a prominent second fiddle in Dutton’s election campaign. A fierce conservative at heart, he was elevated to the frontbench by Abbott and backed Dutton’s takeover from Turnbull.
Once viewed as the Liberal’s ‘golden boy’ and a potential ‘Prime-Minister in waiting’, the shine has since come off him in recent years, due to his role in the “watergate” (not that Watergate) and “grassgate” scandals in 2017 – both very boring scandals that amount to him not declaring financial interests and relationships when he should have. A tale as old as time – as long as there have been interests to declare, Liberal ministers have been not doing that.
The man was a Rhodes Scholar, educated in Oxford in economics (I’m shocked to learn), which suggests he’s been merely playing dumb, rather than actually being dumb with regards to the party costings in this most recent election cycle. I don’t know if it’s just my partisan hackery, but he’s always coded as a bit of a ‘mimbo’ to me – consistently getting on TV and not understanding the basics of how his portfolio functions. But I suppose if Tony Abbott can be a Rhodes Scholar, then literally anyone could be.
It’s interesting to me that Taylor’s considered the front runner, considering his prominent role in the shadow cabinet and his (at least partial) responsibility for the absolute spanking the Liberal party received at the hands of the electorate last week. Labor Treasurer Jim Chalmers, also perhaps suspecting that Taylor was in pole position to be the next leader, decided to stick the boot in on election night, saying explicity that Taylor was a key part of the Coalition’s failure and bore a significant responsibility for the party’s loss.
Whilst it was almost certainly political opportunism (you love to see it) you can see how the Liberal’s sloppy costings, promise to repeal Labor tax cuts and extremely wishful thinking about an ‘off budget’ multi-hundred-billion dollar nuclear plan are sort of hard to blame on anyone but the shadow treasurer – leading many to ask how is Angus Taylor still a thing? Is the architect of the previous campaign’s perceived economic missteps really the fresh face the Liberals need to lead them into the future? I’m doubtful.
Finally (and utterly irrelevant to this discussion, but still very funny to me), Angus Taylor is also famous for accidentally ‘posting on main’ when bigging himself up on one of his Facebook posts. It’s not a scandal, per se; it’s just dumb and amusing to me: Well Done Angus.
Sussan ‘Also The Numbers’ Ley
After Dutton’s departure, Sussan became the acting party head, as she’s the Deputy Leader, and is nominally the other front-runner. But you know, she’s a woman, so much like Julie Bishop, I reckon, is likely to be found at the bottom of a well (politically) after this process. It’s a surprise to literally no one that the LNP’s female representation is currently at an all-time nadir.
Ley has her own financial scandal to cop to as well – a real Sophie’s Choice between these two. In January 2017, Sussan resigned from her position as Minister for Health following a controversy surrounding her travel expense claims. It was revealed that she had purchased a $795,000 apartment on the Gold Coast during a taxpayer-funded trip in 2015 – but of course, buying an apartment for yourself isn’t public business. Ley stated the purchase was “not planned nor anticipated” and that all travel was within entitlement rules. You know how you just casually drop the better part of a million dollars on a whim – ugh, so relatable.
She also played into some pretty gross, racist tropes when she tweeted this:
Ley also has the notable disadvantage of being an utter moron. She revealed in a 2015 interview that she added the extra ‘s’ to her name in her 20s due to her apparent belief in numerology – “I read about this numerology theory that if you add the numbers that match the letters in your name, you can change your personality,” which, I guess, in a way, it has. I know this kind of wanton stupidity from a Liberal shouldn’t surprise and disappoint me after fifteen years, but it still somehow does.
She also famously said ahead of the Jobs and Skills Summit in 2022 that “no one in the world is making an electric ute, by the way, and even if they were, it would be unaffordable.” Of course, you don’t even need to do a Google to know that that’s false, but here’s a screenshot from the ABC Fact Check anyway:
Haha, great stuff. Very Satisfying.
Dan Tehan
Haha, No.
The Party Takes Another Right Turn (Into Oncoming Traffic)
Based on these picks, one can only conclude that the Coalition (if you can believe it) seems to be moving in an even further right-wing, batshit conservative, anti-climate direction. It’s like they are trying to lose. Mathematically, they will have to learn to appeal to those now distant ‘blue ribbon’ liberal seats in the inner city suburbs if they want to govern again.
Or, uhhh, maybe not, shine on you crazy diamonds – never change.