The ascension of Malcolm Turnbull is now complete; the preliminaries are out of the way and the electorate – whether with optimism, impatience, or trepidation – is waiting to see just what it portends.
But within the Liberal Party itself, we are told, the atmosphere remains poisonous. The backrooms are filled with threats of vengeance and vendetta. Already, we have seen the first leak (a sensitive cabinet document showing Malcolm Turnbull appointed fewer women to boards than any other Abbott government minister) – irritable, but without much substance.
The mere fact that it has occurred is seen as a terrible omen for the storms ahead. The excitable are already talking about the long, destructive legacy of the war that brought down Julia Gillard in the Labor years. But that is not likely to happen, because there is a crucial difference.
The Ruddistas had a clear aim and a rational message: they wanted to restore their man as prime minister. And they could point to the polls: a change of leadership would save at least some of their seats.
Some of the fringe dwellers are muttering about a split, the formation of a new, seriously conservative party...
But no-one seriously believes that Abbott can be resurrected. Even if, incredibly, that could happen, it would demonstrably lower popular support, not lift it. They are not after redemption, but revenge.
They insist, against all the evidence, that none of it was really Abbott’s fault – it was the white-anting, the media, the frenzy of the political cycle – anything except the obvious: that the triumphant opposition leader could not make the transition to government. He was accident prone, secretive, erratic, a leader who wanted to be a control freak but was unable to take control.
In the end his colleagues followed the general public and simply despaired: he was, quite simply, not up to the job.
Silliest of all are the shock jocks – Ray Hadley, Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones. Having spent the last two years assuring their complaisant listeners that Turnbull could never again lead the Liberal Party, last week they woke up to find that he could.
The reality has been too much to bear, so now they are trying to turn back time. They apparently believe that if they can scream often enough and loudly enough, then the natural order – the order of the extreme right – will be restored. This is the state technically described as invincible ignorance. They can safely be consigned to Fantasy Land, the happiest kingdom of them all.
But for the recalcitrant rump in the Liberal party room, it will be more difficult. They have moved on from the first stage of grief, denial, to anger; now they will have to progress further to bargaining – in which the more pragmatic are already taking part – to depression, and eventually to acceptance. Let’s face it, they will have to; they have nowhere else to go.
Some of the fringe dwellers are muttering about a split, the formation of a new, seriously conservative party – but how could they define it? The Australian Tea Party? The Christian Fundamentalists? Just to articulate the idea is to show it would be unviable.
Their only platform is bitterness and belligerence, and Abbott tried that for years.
And of course, they have no program, no agenda. Like Abbott, they have run out of ideas. The boats have been stopped, the mining and carbon tax repealed; border security could hardly be made more draconian or brutal than it already is. Climate change has been sidelined, same sex marriage stalled; even the school chaplains have been given extra money.
Fixing the economy, of course, is just too bloody hard. Their only platform is bitterness and belligerence, and Abbott tried that for years. Now the public is ready for a change, even if the hard-liners are not. Tough luck: they will just have to suck it up.
They will grumble, of course – the right-wingers always have and always will. Even when their man was in office, they complained. They are certainly not about to break the habits of a lifetime, just because the rest of the country has cheered up.
For many, probably most, they will be irrelevant – they always have been.
Malcolm Turnbull would be wise to ignore them and concentrate on a brighter, less divisive future. As his great predecessor and, indeed, his former friend, might have put it: it’s time.
Mungo MacCallum is a political journalist and commentator.
