Malcolm Turnbull Is A Lame Duck Prime Minister And The Plebiscite Proves It

In the United States presidential elections are always held in November. But due to a quirk in the constitution, the winning candidate doesn’t officially take office until they’re inaugurated three months later. In the transition period the outgoing president is referred to as a ‘lame duck’. They don’t have as much authority and influence as they used to, and everyone’s basically waiting for them to bugger off.

In Australia we’ve got our own lame duck: Malcolm Turnbull. His lack of authority doesn’t have anything to do with the constitution or election timing, but the fact that he is unable to stand up to conservative forces within his own political party.

Time and time again it’s been proven that Turnbull just doesn’t have the power to convince the Liberals to support his own personal political views. And he doesn’t have the courage to show real leadership and stand up to the likes of Cory Bernardi and Eric Abetz (in fact he’s sending one of them to a junket in New York for three months).

The marriage equality plebiscite is just one policy that proves Malcolm Turnbull is a lame duck. But there are a number of other political decisions he’s made that prove he’s become a puppet for the conservative wing of his own party.

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Turnbull Might Look Progressive But He’s Captive To The Liberal Right-Wing

It’s worth remembering that the plebiscite wasn’t Turnbull’s idea. He preferred a free vote of all MPs. But after a marathon Coalition party room meeting, then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott secured support for a plebiscite. When Turnbull became Prime Minister he adopted most of Abbott’s policies, including the plan for a plebiscite and continued inaction on climate change. Former Liberal leader John Hewson said at the time, “Look, obviously Malcolm did a deal to get there and the deal he did actually compromised some of the basic positions that he’d previously held and held publicly.”

Why We Should Be More Afraid Of Malcolm Turnbull

Turnbull had always been considered a progressive within the Liberal party. He appealed to people who were disenchanted with Labor after a chaotic and messy six years in government but couldn’t bring themselves to embrace Tony Abbott. Even once it became obvious he was happy to ditch his principles in order to gain the leadership, many commentators still held out hope. They argued that his embrace of conservative policies was only due to the fact he didn’t have his own mandate. Once he won the election, the story went, he would have the authority to stamp his own brand of progressive social politics onto the Liberal party.

So how did that work out? Since winning the election (with the narrowest possible majority) Turnbull has recommitted to the plebiscite and has basically the same climate change and economic policies as Tony Abbott. Last month, in a blow to Turnbull’s authority, he was rolled over the decision on whether or not to back Kevin Rudd for the position of UN Secretary-General. The opposition to Rudd came from within the Liberal party’s conservative wing.

In another example, a report in The Australian yesterday suggested that Turnbull had wanted to crackdown on negative gearing tax concessions but was blocked by — you guessed it — conservatives in the Liberal party. But out of all of the issues Turnbull has capitulated on, it’s marriage equality that best encapsulates how powerless he is.

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The Plebiscite Shows That Turnbull Has Absolutely No Authority

An Australian Prime Minister wants to pass a law he really believes in, but most of those on his own side are strongly opposed. The law could pass with the support of the Opposition, but the PM doesn’t want to put it to a Parliamentary vote because he’s worried about splitting his party. In order to try and bypass the deadlock he proposes a plebiscite on the issue. There’s no need for a plebiscite because the law could be changed with a simple act of Parliament. The vote will be non-binding anyway, so MPs are free to ignore the results. Nevertheless the PM goes ahead anyway. He’s so powerless in his party he has no other option.

Sounds like Malcolm Turnbull and the marriage equality plebiscite, right? I’m actually talking about Prime Minister Billy Hughes, way back in 1915.

Back then World War I was raging and the PM was keen to boost Australia’s involvement by introducing conscription. Unfortunately for Hughes, most of his own party didn’t back him. In a bid to try and put some pressure on them he took the issue to a plebiscite. The idea was that if it passed the reluctant MPs on his own side would cave in and support conscription. In the end the plebiscite was defeated and Hughes split his party anyway.

Marriage equality and military conscription don’t have a lot in common, but both the 1915 plebiscite proposed by Billy Hughes and the current plan for one on marriage equality came about for the same reason. The Prime Minister just didn’t have the support of his own party to pursue a policy he personally believed in.

Let’s be clear about one thing: whatever you think of the plebiscite, the only reason it’s happening is because Turnbull doesn’t have the courage or authority to stand up to conservative forces in his own party. Like Billy Hughes, he’s gambling on a public vote to try beat them into submission. But in a further example of how weak Turnbull his, conservative Liberal MPs have already said they won’t be bound by the results of the plebiscite.

If Turnbull introduced a bill for marriage equality and granted a free vote of Liberal MPs the law would pass. But he won’t do that, because he’s worried that conservatives in his party would react by removing him from the leadership and installing one of their own, potentially Tony Abbott. And that sums up how powerless and ineffectual the Prime Minister is. He isn’t able to actually implement reforms that he personally believes in because he is constrained by conservative MPs and he doesn’t have the courage to stand up to them.

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Turnbull Has Been Exposed And Now His Popularity is Plummeting

Given how disappointing Turnbull’s Prime Ministership has been, is it any wonder that his popularity has collapsed? At the last election the Coalition recorded its fourth lowest primary vote in 60 years. A new poll published this week showed that more than 50 percent of Australians were dissatisfied with his performance.

Turnbull had an opportunity to restore Australian’s faith in politics after the bruising Rudd-Gillard-Rudd-Abbott years. More Australians than ever before are rejecting the major parties, and why shouldn’t they? Both Labor and the Coalition have shown, time and time again, that they’re more concerned about their own jobs than actually governing in the interests of the country.

Turnbull’s personal views on marriage equality, climate change and economic reform were line with the majority of the country. He had the chance to show that politics could actually deliver something worthwhile. If he stuck to his beliefs on marriage equality and climate change the country would have been a fairer place and he would have gained a substantial amount of credibility in the eyes of the public.

Instead he took the coward’s path. He buckled at every opportunity to show real leadership and caved in to the likes of Cory Bernardi, time and time again. Even his attempt to gain same authority through a plebiscite looks designed to fail, just like it did back in 1915.

Malcolm Turnbull is a Prime Minister in name only. In reality he’s a lame duck posing as a national leader and the conservatives are the ones really calling the shots. Unless he grows a spine, and it doesn’t seem like he will, the country will continue to be held hostage right-wing politicians obsessed with a retrograde vision for Australia.