Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has described the Prime Minister's decision to sack veteran Liberal MP Philip Ruddock as chief government whip as "very sad" and a "captain's call".

Mr Abbott has indicated he sacked Mr Ruddock because he "wasn't as aware as he should have been" of backbench unrest over his leadership.

The decision to replace Mr Ruddock has angered backbench critics who argue its timing makes it look like recrimination for last week's failed attempt to spill the Liberal leadership.

Mr Turnbull was widely viewed as the frontbencher most likely to replace Mr Abbott as leader if the spill motion had succeeded.

On the ABC's Q&A program Mr Turnbull praised Mr Ruddock as "the Father of the House".

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-17/turnbull-says-pms-call-to-sack-ruddock-was-a-sad-day/6122056

If Tony Abbott was not aware as he should have been about dissent in the ranks, he is more of an imbecile that I try to portray him... His chief of staff might have protected him from the GIGANORMOUS rumbles in the populace translating into the winter of their discontent for some MPs... So it was Ruddock's job to tell the Turd in Chief that the windows were rattling... I guess that Ruddock in his own way would have mentioned that the temple of doom was crumbling down, but the Turd in Chief did not want to listen as he does not listen to anyone... In one ear out the other... He always blame someone else for the deafness of his noticeable appendages connected to an empty space in between...

Would he criticise Abbott directly for summarily dumping Philip Ruddock as chief whip? No but he pumped Ruddock up so much as a beloved and universally revered figure of the Liberal Party as to cast Abbott as the man who had just shot Bambi. And if that wasn't enough, it had been a "captain's call" he said, leading one inexorably to the conclusion that Abbott had again acted entirely alone. If there was an unspoken word-cloud from Turnbull's comments it would probably feature such things as "judgment", "harsh", "unfair" and "revenge". 

There were other cases too. There were implicit criticisms not just of the economic messaging and salesmanship, but of the economic policies themselves outlined in the budget.

And there was the pointed observation that while "sloganing" and "dumbing down" might represent an attempt to "reach out" to the electorate, they were patronising and ineffective.

Clear, but not "simplistic" communication was the way to reach voters he suggested. Again, the contradistinction with an Abbott notorious for three word slogans such as "end the waste", "axe the tax", and "stop the boats" seemed obvious.

But perhaps his most direct appeal was in his observation that Australian politics is decided by voters in the "sensible centre".

This is undoubtedly true. But the comment was a reminder of the differences between the Abbott leadership style and the kind Turnbull would deliver.

As the Left's favourite Liberal, Turnbull runs a risk on Q&A that is similar to the danger for Abbott when he is interviewed by right-wing shock-jocks. In Abbott's case this cosy atmosphere has seen him lapse into right-wing fantasy on occasions, thus losing the Australian mainstream. In the case of the more centrist Turnbull, the risk is of drifting too far from his own party base.

read more:

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/is-malcolm-turn...

The 2014 budget was the Abbott government’s “biggest misstep” and the time for political “spin and slogans” or “exaggeration and oversimplification” is now over ,Malcolm Turnbull has declared.

As the prime minister retreats from a series of key budget and economic policies without obvious alternatives – including reinstating previously axed industry assistance schemes – the man seen as his strongest leadership rival has pointedly remarked that governments seen as bad economic managers are usually thrown out.

Australia now needs an “evidence-based, spin-free, fair-dinkum debate about the budget position and what we should do to fix it”, Turnbull declared in a speech to the Brisbane Club, saying this put the spotlight on Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey as well as on Labor leader Bill Shorten and shadow treasurer Chris Bowen.

“The more fundamental problem the 2014-15 budget faced was that the public was not persuaded tough measures were necessary in the first place,” the communications minister said. 

“We – and I include myself and every member of the government in this criticism – did not do a good enough job in explaining the scale of the fiscal problem the nation faces, and the urgency of taking corrective action. In addition there was a deeply felt sense in much of the community that our proposed budget measures were unfair to people on lower incomes when taken as a whole.”

“In my view the failure to effectively make the case for budget repair was our biggest misstep, because it was a threshold we never crossed,” he said. The failure meant the government had been unable to make its case and the opposition had been able to avoid pressure to come up with viable alternatives.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/mar/11/malcolm-turnbull-says-2014-budget-was-abbott-governments-biggest-misstep

Sorry, Malcolm, your failure to sell tough measures had nothing to do with "tough" measures... The problem laid with the budget. It was crap, unfair, too tough on the poor little guys and easy on the big end of town... Simple. You can try to repackage or reinvent the wheel here by smoothing a square peg but the budget as it stands with its education "innovations" and car investment crashes or health fiddles, is still a lame duck... Trying to tell us you were unable to sell shit to us is only a reflection on what your try to sell us: shit. Or a notch above shit: crap.

People are a bit more astute when it comes to principles... Yes we know about 45 per cent of the populace does not have any principles, but one should look at the higher echelons of the social fabric. Most poor people have more principles that those at the top: often, this is why they are poor. Trying to steal from the poor is not a principle. It's a steal.