One story has dominated the last fortnight in Canberra: the unseasonal cold weather, which has played havoc with the bulbs in the annual Floriade flower festival. It’s been bitter!
Oh – and we got a new Prime Minister. Yes, the revolving door of federal political leadership has made another grinding quarter-turn. Of the four people stuck revolving in this door for the last eight years, Malcolm Turnbull has emerged first among equals (although obviously some are more first than others). If only he could use the warmth of his triumphant glow to coax the Floriade annuals into bloom.
The Abbott experiment has failed. Is anyone surprised? Nick Minchin, 2GB and the South Australian Right aside, no-one seriously believed that Abbott could ever lead this country. But apparently he did.
The former PM completed phase one of his appointed mission by removing any credible response to climate change. Phase two proved a little harder, because no-one seemed to have any clear idea of precisely what phase two entailed. Despite having been touted by the media as a “devastatingly effective opposition leader”, it soon became apparent that Tony was devastating and not much else.
Effective opposition requires two things: the ability to win government and the formulation of something sensible to do once you get there. Perhaps if Abbott had won government and then handed it to someone else, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Christopher Pyne, former moderate turned hard man (after a fashion) is back to being a lower-case liberal overnight, itching to book a few guesties on Q&A.
What a lot of talent has been squandered in the carnage. The charismatic Kevin Andrews now languishes on the backbench. You wait – without his watchful eye, there’ll be same-sex marriage in this country in 50 years’ time.
Meanwhile, Joe Hockey has gone and might be heading to Washington. Thankfully, if there’s one thing the US-Australian alliance can handle, it’s complete inactivity. Eric Abetz, loyal to the last, will sink back into the obscurity into which he emerged. "Koori" Bernardi has even threatened to start his own party. Now, wouldn’t that be a fun night out? He, Concetta Fierravanti-Wells and their few remaining fellow neo-cons. Andrew Bolt could bring the Bacardi Breezers.
But who knows what thinly-veiled political stripes lurk beneath some in the totes new-look government? Scott Morrison, reviled and divisive scarcely 18 months ago, is now being hailed as the saviour of Treasury. Really? If he was so good at stopping the refugees, why not make him Ambassador to Syria?
Peter Dutton’s still there on the front bench; ditto Mathias Cormann, the worst thing to come out of Brussels since the sprout. Christopher Pyne, former moderate turned hard man (after a fashion) is back to being a lower-case liberal overnight, itching to book a few guesties on Q&A.
The charismatic Kevin Andrews now languishes on the backbench. You wait – without his watchful eye, there’ll be same-sex marriage in this country in 50 years’ time.
As for Arthur Sinodinos: what ICAC enquiry, your Honour? And is there anyone left in the party room who can trust Julie Bishop? If she approached offering the handshake of undying loyalty, any sensible person would make a beeline for the nearest exit. In other mixed blessings for the sisterhood, Marise Payne has become the first woman to hold Defence, the ministerial post where political careers go to die. Kelly O’Dwyer, enthusiastic champion of the government’s erstwhile hard line, has been promoted. Mal Brough, his hands still steeped in the gore of Peter Slipper, remains front and centre-right. As far as ideological renewal goes, it looks like the leopard has changed one spot, and that’s about it.
What of the collateral damage of the Abbott years? The scorched-earth approach he adopted – largely, I suspect, under the guidance of “devastatingly effective” strategists Crosby and Textor – has all but levelled many of our scientific and educational institutions, stripped the trust we had in the public service and taken out a generation of political talent we could sorely afford to lose.
Julia Gillard, Greg Combet, John Faulkner, Tony Windsor, Peter Garrett, Bob Carr – the hapless Bronwyn Bishop – all left in the dust. The lives and reputations of Craig Thompson and Peter Slipper, precarious to begin with, lie shattered with a brutal finality. And for what?
I hope that in a care facility somewhere, hands pausing in his occupational therapy, a frail figure looked up at the television to see Malcolm, Lucy and a hastily organised baby standing proudly, optimistically – even, dare one say it, imperially – in the dappled sunshine of a Wentworth morning. And I hope that frail figure could share in the nation’s re-imagining, and that he, Godwin Grech, could know the country was in a safer, fairer pair of hands and the tulips would soon burst forth in Floriade.
Actor, writer and comedian Jonathan Biggins is perhaps best known as director of The Wharf Revue for the Sydney Theatre Company.
