Desperate to assert his authority over a divided party, damaged by his predecessor's destabilisation campaign and unable to put together a coherent narrative on tax reform or budget repair, Turnbull needs an early election before his pose as a progressive and effective Liberal leader is revealed to all to be just a cruel hoax.

After six months, Turnbull has disappointed many Australians' hopes that he'd be something different — a better PM than the embarrassing incompetent he knifed. Not being Abbott made him popular for a while, but he has failed to manage any greater expectations. His policies are Abbot MKII and his pretensions to be an expert economic leader have been flatly contradicted by his indecision, inertia and death of ideas. A one man leadership debt and deficit on his own, Turnbull has created a policy vacuum his opponents have eagerly filled.

The Turnbull policy vacuum has enabled Labor to defeat the government's GST plans, at least this time around. Labor has also been able to set out its own policy ideas. It's a curious form of leadership. Under Turnbull the Liberal Party seems as if it's in opposition again, chasing Labor initiatives rather than making the running itself. And fobbing us off with promises.

It's too late to defend inertia by claiming all will be revealed in the Budget. Not only is the nation entitled to be having the debate now, voters have run out of trust in "later". We've been burnt before. The treasurer's promises, thought bubbles and retreats so far inspire no confidence in his grasp of economic policy. Yet Morrison is Turnbull's appointee.

read more: https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/the-incredible-shrinking-malcolm-finally-drops-his-double-bundle,8804

Dear media: Turnbull isn't decisive, he's desperate

OPINION

By Tim Dunlop

 

All we were seeing was massive relief that Mr Abbott was gone. What we were going through, I argued, was "less a honeymoon for Mr Turnbull than the sort of psychic relief that comes from waking up alive in intensive care after a particularly horrific car crash. We are scarred and bruised and in need of ongoing care, but all our limbs are intact and our organs are functioning. We are still in recovery, sipping through a straw."

Since then, Mr Turnbull has dithered. He has shown himself, time and again, unable to stand up to the right wing faction within his party and has struggled to say anything of substance, preferring the sort of slogans for which people used to mock Mr Abbott: "be agile"; "be innovative"; "there's never been a more exciting time to be an Australian".

So successful has this "strategy" been that Mr Turnbull has plunged from the stellar approval ratings he had post-Abbott into actual negative territory in the latest Newspoll.

And yet, key players in the mainstream media are now asking us to believe that this was all part of some master plan capped off by his "striking and authoritative move" to call an early election.

Give me a break.

When a prime minister feels obliged to - as one headline had it - "throw caution to the wind" and bring on an early election that he had previously indicated wouldn't happen, that isn't bold, decisive leadership. It is desperation.

Tim Dunlop writes regularly for The Drum and a number of other publications. He hosts the podcast Washington Dreaming, discussing the forthcoming US Presidential Election. His new book, Busted Utopia: The Future of Work, Rest and Play will be released in 2016. You can follow him on Facebook and on Twitter.

 

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-22/dunlop-dear-media-turnbull-isn't-decisive-he's-desperate/7265720

"Continuity and change" was how Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull chose to describe his relationship to the policies of former leader Tony Abbott on Monday.

But he was seemingly unaware that satirical US show Veep had used a strikingly similar phrase to mock the emptiness of modern politics.

In Veep, a US presidential hopeful uses the phrase "continuity with change".

The show's creators said they were shocked at the coincidence.

Veep centres on a fictional US vice president, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who in one episode has the phrase "continuity with change" plastered on the side of a campaign bus.

Ms Louis-Dreyfus tweeted that she was "dumbfounded".

Simon Blackwell, the writer and executive producer for the popular political TV show, told the Guardian he laughed when he heard Mr Turnbull use the "most meaningless election slogan we could think of".

"We needed it to be hollow and oxymoronic, to say absolutely nothing but seem to have depth and meaning. It couldn't be too daft though - it had to be funny but still believable," Mr Blackwell said.

read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-35878179

The federal government's "slow-lane" approach to funding innovation provided a major flashpoint on Q&A on Monday night, with criticism the $1.1 billion pledged by the government was meagre compared to the money pledged by private start-ups.

Audience member Pete Cooper set the tone for the evening, after he interrupted Assistant Minister for Innovation Wyatt Roy to demand the dollar figure matched the ambitious rhetoric.

"Why aren't we supporting [start-ups] in the budget statement and innovation statement? Why are we doing slow lane innovation strategies?" Mr Cooper asked.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/wyatt-roy-grilled-on-startup-funding-on-qa-the-money-doesnt-match-the-words-mate-20160329-gnsna2.html#ixzz44E8mI5CM
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Mr Cooper is on the money trail here... The new Turnbull innovation "boom package" is amateurish, hypocritical and way underfunded. But one could cope with this to a point though, on the one hand, this silly government destroys the CSIRO great research and on the other hand it "plans" to give moneys to unimportant "ideas" that fit neatly into little old boxes so they can be ticked off by the accountant. Accountancy has killed off more ideas that hunters kill kangaroos in a cull. 
All the Liberal (CONservative) projects are designed to favour bean counters and innovators of a new lolly flavour. We don't need one. 

Knifing it was... Even the Sunday Crapograph agrees. And the deed was done to save the Libs (CONservatives) — NOTHING ELSE.

 

Read interview at top... And watch the Daily Turdograph all next week to Saturday... It is going to be painful...