Just blame Abbott. Can’t be Turnbull’s fault, can it? Andrew...

Just blame Abbott. Can’t be Turnbull’s fault, can it?

Andrew Bolt

APRIL072016 (9:21am)

Niki Savva writes about Tony Abbott for a change, and how terrible he is. It seems that Malcolm Turnbull is actually a near-genius and only that wicked Abbott is stopping voters from seeing it:

Since Malcolm Turnbull ascended to the leadership, Tony Abbott, his remaining acolytes, assorted fogeys and losers have treated themselves to one long dummy spit, as if they were bigger and better than the party they were privileged to represent or that they purport to support.

Turnbull has made his mistakes in the job — and which prime minister has not, certainly in the early stages — but they are neither as grave nor as numerous or as costly in the longer term as the hyperventilating Del-Cons assert. However, the behaviour of those thrown off the gravy train, or placed outside whispering distance from the PM’s shell-like, has been truly appalling....

The Abbottophiles have gorged on revenge almost from day one of Turnbull’s leadership, seeking to cast it as somehow illegitimate. Their sniping, wrecking and undermining has undoubtedly had an impact on the government’s standing. Nevertheless, their behaviour would lack bite, and their delight in exercising their newly found free will lessened, if the government’s performance was blemish-free. It has not been.

Oh, the spinning of Turnbull’s latest bungling:

Once the states had been briefed in advance on plans to grant them income tax powers (which incidentally was no thought bubble and was approved by cabinet) it was as good as putting out a press release. Of course it would leak.

“Approved by cabinet”? Not quite, according to sources close to the Treasurer (note, Niki, not Abbott). Mark Kenny:

Treasurer Scott Morrison placed an altogether more hypothetical spin on the “idea” of state income taxes, tending to hose down enthusiasm as he said it was merely being “explored” state and territory leaders at Friday’s COAG meeting.

According to a senior federal government source, Morrison’s understanding was consistent with the broader cabinet intent that had licensed the PM to explore the state income tax power at COAG. Yet from the get-go, Turnbull had appeared to be speaking more definitively than that.

And the states were ‘briefed in advance’? Not really:

Victoria’s Daniel Andrews complained that the first he knew of [Turnbull’s proposal to let states raise their own income tax] was what he read in a newspaper just two days before. Other leaders said they had received a phone call from the PM around that time but that Turnbull had declined to explain his proposal beyond the most broad schematic outline

But why bother with such details when you’ve got the AbbottAbbottAbbott to blame?

No wonder the abuse of him and the “delcons” is starting to sound unhinged.

(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.)