Pencils now should be a mandatory issue for all of Australian’s federal public servants, purely for use to change the name and keep track of who is leading their nation! For the fifth time in as many years, there is now a new prime minister, this time with Scott Morrison deposing incumbent Malcolm Turnbull after he failed to suppress an insurrection in the Liberal party’s ranks.
Since 2010, four of those who have held the highest elected office in Canberra have been deposed — not at the ballot box, but as a result of bitter political catfights and score-settling that resemble more of a Melbourne gangland purge than the business of running the world’s largest mixed-market economies, ranked 11th globally and worth some A$1.7 trillion (Dh4.55 trillion).
Turnbull was pushed aside following a challenge from hard-right member of parliament Peter Dutton, and the resulting leadership vote that was not contested by Turnbull, led to a three-way ballot between Dutton, Treasurer Morrison and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop.
Sadly, if the leadership contest was supposed to unite the party, it failed miserably. Bishop was eliminated on the first ballot, with Morrison then defeating Dutton by 45 to 40. But the Liberal party is in a tenuous coalition arrangement and faces the prospect of a general election sooner rather than later, one that could again return a fractured parliament where political stability is trumped by personal ambitions.
Certainly, such political upheavals are part and parcel of any political party process. But there comes a time when the primary duty of any party is to govern effectively and responsibly, putting the interests of the nation before party. That’s seemingly lost in Canberra, where persons act purely in their own interests first.
