Malcolm Turnbull says he'll end stupid, shouty politics – his critics should too

Extract from The Guardian

Lenore Taylor

For the experiment in ending zero-sum warrior politics to succeed, disagreement and scrutiny must be conducted as debate, not screaming match

If Turnbull can take the punch out of politics it will help other politicians too – including the ones with whom his critics concur. Photograph: Sam Mooy/AAP

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Friday 18 September 2015 19.57 AEST

Ending stupid, shouty politics will be a stretch even for someone with the talents of Malcolm Turnbull.

With-us-or-against-us warrior politics has become entrenched. The nation has suffered through six years of slogans, an endless cycle of manufactured news and distraction and hyperbolic aggression against anyone who dared to disagree – from greenies to lawyers to people who worried about refugees or human rights or wanted to build those “terribly ugly” windfarms.

Some commentators claimed it was the system that was broken, blaming the shallow, voracious news cycle that struggles to hold a thought for more than five minutes, saying we were now incapable of sustaining a national conversation. But it’s been a while since anyone tried.

The new prime minister says he means to change all that. He will explain and discuss and persuade.

It’s an almost preposterous ambition – and the ultimate test of his claim to the job.

But it is also a test for everyone who engages in the political debate, everyone who has claimed they hate politics by slogan, everyone who has pleaded for a rational contest of ideas instead of a competition to see who can yell their dumbed-down soundbites the loudest.

The Abbott years of combat politics have brought us dangerously close to the situation where “debate” has been replaced by instant excoriation of anyone who doesn’t agree with our own views.

Self-identifying “lefties” admonish others on the progressive side of politics for making even slightly positive noises about Turnbull, for hoping that his government might be an improvement, pointing out – quite correctly – that in his first speech he nominated values including “freedom, the individual and the market” and that he hasn’t subscribed to a left view on industrial relations. It’s not clear why this should be surprising, since he is, after all, a Liberal. Like that invitation to Dyson Heydon, the clue is right there on the letterhead.

Meanwhile, rightwing commentators have been having a collective conniption because Turnbull – like most Australians – doesn’t always share the type of social conservatism to which they, and Abbott, subscribe. Oh, and they probably enjoyed feeling like they ran the show. Radio announcer Ray Hadley castigated Turnbull for being Labor-lite because of his views on the republic and marriage equality, and in the next breath attacked him for being “pliable” because he had “parked” those views in order to become prime minister. 

According to Hadley, Turnbull is also “on the nose” with the electorate – which doesn’t really tally with what the polls say. On Friday his bloated self-importance extended to demanding that Scott Morrison swear on a Bible in order for Hadley to believe Morrison’s version of his prior knowledge of the coup.

As I wrote this week, the central dilemma in the early stages of Turnbull’s prime ministership will be to bridge the gap between the public expectation that he will be immediately different from Abbott with the promises he has made to the right of the party that on key issues policy will stay much the same.

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2015/sep/17/malcolm-turnbull-down-to-work-as-tony-abbott-declares-he-will-stay-politics-live?CMP=ons_b-richmapper

Unsurprisingly, given the way he was – in his own words – “poleaxed” as opposition leader for trying to force his views on climate policy upon the sceptics in his party, his first priority will be to settle his own team down. The white fury of Abbott and his supporters will take some time to subside. The leaks so far have been insubstantial in content, but they seem to be a statement of intent. And having promised a return to proper cabinet process, Turnbull really couldn’t start ditching or amending too many of Abbott’s policies before he had even appointed a new cabinet.

Labor took the obvious line of attack – Turnbull was another Tony Abbott, just wearing an Apple watch and a nicer suit.

But it pays to look at what Turnbull actually did and said in his first crazy week, as he juggled calls from international leaders, decisions on his new ministry and parliamentary sittings, complete with four question times.

He actually didn’t say he would stick with every policy, but rather that it would be up to cabinet to endorse policy change.

“Every policy of any rational, constructive government is always under review, of course,” he told parliament. “Our cabinet will examine the challenges that we face, the policies that we have, we’ll develop new policies.”

Contrary to reports, he did not offer the Nationals billions in extra funding to get them to sign a Coalition agreement, although he did agree to transfer responsibility for water policy.

And he has long signalled he would work within Abbott’s climate policy, which as I have written before, can be “dialled up” and added to, to become a reasonably credible way of reducing emissions.

But if that’s what Turnbull intends he probably needs to think twice before saying – as he did in parliament this week – that the emissions reduction fund “is reducing emissions at a remarkably low cost”.

Actually, it is in large part paying people to continue doing things they were already doing, and in some cases would have continued to do anyway. And it paid on average $14 a tonne, compared with an international carbon price of between $10 and $12. And it can’t possibly meet deeper long-term targets.

In a way the promise to try to banish the slogans is the biggest test of his prime ministership, and they key to its success.

Those who would like him to succeed are under no obligation to agree with Turnbull. They have every right, in fact every responsibility, to subject his new policies or ideas to the sharpest of scrutiny. If nothing much changes he deserves all the criticism he will get.

But for the great experiment in ending zero-sum warrior politics to have any chance of success, the disagreements and scrutiny need to be conducted as a debate, rather than as a screaming match.

And when you think about that, it’s in everyone’s interest. If Turnbull can take the punch out of politics it will help other politicians too – including the ones with whom his critics concur.