No, don't blame Abbott for Turnbull's do-nothing

Spot on article.



Michael Koziol is normally sharper than this, and should not fall for the Left's blame-Abbott excuse for Malcolm Turnbull's stunning list of non-achievements in his first year in office.
First, the problem:
Andrew Bolt is on a roll. As the anniversary of Tony Abbott's ousting approaches, the right-wing broadcaster has taken to grilling his guests on the achievements of Malcolm Turnbull's government.
On Monday night Peta Credlin was stumped...
On Thursday, Bolt tried the same trick on former Victorian Liberal premier Jeff Kennett, ... asking him whether he could name one of Mr Turnbull's achievements from the past 12 months.
"Not easily," Mr Kennett responded, though he said he "desperately" wanted the PM to succeed.

"I did come up with three or four things [but] I can't recall them right now": Jeff Kennett could not name a Turnbull government achievement. Photo: Sky News Australia
"Can you name one?" Bolt insisted.
"No, not at the moment."...
"I was thinking of this last weekend to myself, putting myself through the same test, and I did come up with three or four things that I thought were noteworthy," he said. "I can't recall them right now, but there have been some things that they have done."
Then comes the excuse:
The lukewarm endorsement plays into a picture of the Turnbull government as a do-nothing administration, hampered by Abbott-era commitments, a poor election result and the Faustian pact Mr Turnbull entered when he seized the leadership in September 2015.
But wait. First, if Turnbull had no "Abbott-era" commitments, whether the Abbott-era domestic violence package he launched or the spending cuts he was last month daring Labor to endorse, he'd actually have no agenda at all. He'd look even more cloueless.
Second, the poor election result is actually a consequences of Turnbull having no agenda and poor political skills. Ir is the consequence and not the cause.
Third, the "Faustian pact" - not to change the the Coalition's global warming policies or the promise of a people's vote on same-sex marriage - have actually saved him from self-destruction. Doing more on global warming would have split the Coalition and probably the Liberals without gaining him a single vote. And see how popular the same-sex plebiscite it. Had Turnbull insisted on a parliamentary vote instead he'd have alienated many voters and had Liberals members baying for his blood.
No, Turnbull's list of failures come from the plain fact that he has had no agenda, no courage to pursue any and no talent for communicating what he's up to.
It has nothing to do with Abbott, who is in fact looking better by contrast with every passing week.


http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/a...g/news-story/4e369ecd97b83aea6fcb42573bdb3b6a