The Prime Minister must accept full responsibility for the political predicament facing the government and his leadership.
Writing for the Daily Telegraph and appearing on the ABC’s the DRUM on 10 June 2016, three weeks before the last election, I was the first in the media to forecast that Turnbull’s ‘small target’ election campaign approach was unprecedented and would end in disaster.
I predicted that Turnbull would lack a meaningful agenda and mandate to solve Australia’s pressing public policy problems and would, if elected, lead a do-nothing government resulting in the collapse of the Government’s opinion poll numbers.
I suggested that under this scenario Turnbull would not serve as Prime Minister for the entire parliamentary term and would be dispatched in either late 2017 or the first half of 2018.
Eight months into the new parliamentary term and my pre-election thesis, so far, has been proven correct.
The Coalition has a vacuous agenda to deal with pressing public policy problems such as the cost of living, employment security, record household and foreign debt, declining school academic results, chronic illicit drug use or the fracturing of social cohesion.
The Coalition now struggles with a substantially lower primary vote than when Tony Abbott was removed and the Prime Minister faces open hostility from regional Australia.
The Government’s political misfortunes were entirely avoidable and Turnbull has no one to blame other than himself.
