Comments on: How bad was Turnbull’s Satisfaction Plunge?

By: Grog

Grog — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:31:33 +0000

cheers David Richards – that’d do it.

By: adrian

adrian — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:44:10 +0000

Forget about the two party trend – at any federal election where the primary vote for each party is equal and the primary vote for the Greens is between 9 and 12 percent, as it has been for some time, the Coalition would lose by a fair stretch – so it must be a nightmare for the Turnbull class to even contemplate an election where the ALP has even a small primary vote lead AND the Greens vote is between nine and twelve per cent – under those conditions, the Coalition would be annihilated – but arithmetic rarely features in political spin … they just hope that you won’t notice it when assessing the monthly opinion poll results.

By: David Richards

David Richards — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:57:18 +0000

….. convert to Islam and declare a jihad on the Australian cricket team while taking a dump on a photo of the Queen and fornicating with a goat as he sets fire to the flag?

By: Grog

Grog — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:26:05 +0000

Oh look Poss, it could be worse for Turnbull he could… ummm not sure how to finish that statement.

By: Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:07:40 +0000

Turnbull’s great problem is that the Turnmail-gate affair only served to reinforce already held doubts people held about his character, especially trustworthiness. It wasn’t revealing anything new, just confirming suspicions.

There is not much of a chance he can turn that around other than cashing all his wealth and donating it charity to charity, and maybe even that wouldn’t work.

By: Jeff Waugh

Jeff Waugh — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 05:07:38 +0000

I don’t think it will be forgotten so much as integrated into the subconscious narrative and context about Malcolm Turnbull. It might even take a lost election and a “Lazarus with a triple bypass” style rise for him to get over it.

By: stephen martin

stephen martin — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:13:22 +0000

Unfortunately for Turnbull the poll occurred after an awful time for him in Parliament, self inflicted certainly, but I have no doubt that over time much will be forgotten (A week in a long time in politics), and the polls will return to a more “normal” level of dissatisfaction with his performance.
The Coalition is stuck with him for the time being, unless Costello has a change of heart, but even if he does he has a fair bit of baggage. Still he is a great Parliamentary performer when he puts his mind to it.
Assuming they don’t shoot themselves in the foot Labor is for quite a while I would say.

By: David Sanderson

David Sanderson — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 03:04:18 +0000

Arguing like a lawyer (ie arguing that Swan was ultimately responsible for the fake email) only added to the damage he was doing himself. If Turnbull truly wants to put that matter behind him then he will have to ‘front-up’ much more honestly than he has done so far and also explain how he intends to use his leadership from now on. Promising to renew and modernise party policy and practices would be a good first step.

Incidentally, taking off to Afghanistan only added a touch of weirdness to his behaviour.

By: John

John — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:45:53 +0000

What this says to me is that very few people are any good at being Opposition Leader. I think the art of being in opposition is not comprehended at all by those who are enduring it. They continue to decline in popularity and get rolled by their colleagues. The exceptions are Rudd (who had the job less than a year), similarly Howard in 94 to 96, Hewson’s name doesn’t appear very much, and granted the length of time he was in the post, Beazley Mk I did a fair job, I’d argue.

By: Peter J. Nicol

Peter J. Nicol — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:26:41 +0000

Yep – that pretty much answered my question.