Daily Telegraph, Sidney.png The political assassination of Tony Abbott Joe Spagnolo, Political Editor, Daily Telegraph, Sidney, 14 September 2015 Bill Shorten was one week out. Addressing a rally in Armadale on Saturday, the federal Labor leader told the crowd that the Monday after the Canning by-election, Tony Abbott's enemies would move against him and Australia could have a new Prime Minister. The political assassination did occur, as Shorten predicted. But it happened tonight, not next week. The move against Abbott came two days after The Sunday Times and other News Corp Australia publications published results of a Galaxy Poll which showed a 10 per cent swing against the government in the September 19, Canning by-election. In my column on Sunday I wrote that if that 10 per cent swing was replicated in the 2016 federal election, the Liberal's strong hold in WA would be lost and the seats of Canning, Cowan, Hasluck, Swan, Pearce, Stirling and the new seat of Burt would fall to Labor. I wrote: "WA Liberals such as Julie Bishop, Mathias Cormann and Michael Keenan are all senior ministers in Abbott's Government. Turnbull and Bishop.png "Bishop has waited years for the political life she now needs. "Faced with the very real possibility of returning to opposition in 12 months, you have to wonder what her thoughts would be" (after reading The Sunday Times'poll). We now know what she thought of our poll. Two days after our poll was published, Bishop told Abbott she could no longer support him as leader and she was supporting Malcolm Turnbull to become Australia's new Prime Minister. Just a few hours later, after a party room meeting, Turnbull was elected by his peers as the Liberal Party's new leader, and the new Prime Minister. Bishop retained her job as deputy leader of the Liberal Party and her much loved Foreign Affairs ministry. Like several of her WA colleagues, Bishop was worried she would end up back in opposition if Abbott remained PM. Dining with the good folk of Curtin, instead of world leaders in her capacity at Foreign Affairs Minister, was not a favourable scenario for Bishop who had waited years for her "dream job". But the political assassination of Abbott presents new problems for Bishop and her government. Bishop and the Liberals spent three years ridiculing Julia Gillard and Labor for sacking a Prime Minister. Gillard and Labor were painted as back stabbing assassins by the Liberals. Kevin Rudd too was mocked by the Liberals when he in turn back stabbed Gillard. How do Turnbull and Bishop now look the nation in the eye and explain the political assassination of Abbott? Turnbull and Bishop will now be hoping that the Liberals not only hang on to Canning this Saturday, but win with a decent margin. This would be sold as testimony to their deeds. Although a loss on Saturday, or a significantly reduced margin in Canning, would still be blamed on Abbott. Politics is a dirty game. If Liberal Canning candidate Andrew Hastie did not know this before tonight, he knows it now. From: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/joe-spagnolo-the-political-as sassination-of-tony-abbott/story-fnii5tho-1227527379257 -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
