Australia gets new Prime Minister

[mistermack]

Dunno what's going on.

Malcolm Turnbull is from the same party, but he's a republican. Tony Abbott, the outgoing Prime Minister, is a staunch monarchist.
Doesn't the party hold a position on the head of state?

Apart from that, I know very little about either. Abbott was religious. Quite a hard-liner. And not popular.
That's it, that's my lot.

[Hermit]

Doesn't the party hold a position on the head of state?

Yes, it does, but you need to understand the Australian political system to come to grips with it. Like all other Australian political parties it elects a leader of that party. If that party gets the opportunity to form a government, that leader automatically, though at least in theory not necessarily, becomes the Prime Minister. Nothing in the Australian Constitution or any party's rules precludes a leader from being deposed and replaced by another, no matter if that leader is Prime Minister at the time or not. When we vote in a general election we don't actually vote a particular individual into Prime ministership like US voters voting for a particular individual to become POTUS. We vote for members of parliament and when those members come to an agreement, they will determine who will be Australia's Prime Minister.

[Rum]

Just the same in the UK. Abbott seems to have been deeply disliked by many though - more than most politicians are these days.

[cronus]

[laklak]

Where's rEv? He's so fucking happy on FB he could shit on the floor.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Turnbull's acceptance speech was interesting. Hearing somebody eulogise the guy they have just knifed in the back kinda sets off the old Cognitive Dissonance!

[Svartalf]

You have to eulogise the dead, even if you hated them, even if you were the one who murdered them, lest the old ghost come and do you in too.

[Hermit]

You need to read between the lines. After the customary and perfunctory formality of praising the rival in the same camp that he just had politically knifed in a terminal way, Turnbull continued thus:

"We need to have," (Abbott did not) "and we will have now," (unlike until half an hour ago) "an economic vision, a leadership" (Abbott was the leadership) that explains the great challenges and opportunities that we face and describes the way we can handle those challenges, seize the opportunities and do so in a manner that the Australian people understand." (Abbott did none of that. this is new because I'm at the helm now.) "So we are seeking to persuade rather than to lecture" (Abbott was doing the latter.)

And then, to really put the boot in: "This will be a thoroughly liberal government..." Will be? Two years after the Liberal Party was elected to govern? Mhhh, who headed the not so liberal government then?

And so on.

[JimC]

Bill Shorten (leader of the opposition ALP) will be seriously pissed off. If Abbott had still been PM at the next election, it would have been all over red rover for the libs. Now, much more of a 50/50 proposition...

[mistermack]

Bill Shorten (leader of the opposition ALP) will be seriously pissed off. If Abbott had still been PM at the next election, it would have been all over red rover for the libs. Now, much more of a 50/50 proposition...

That's the advantage of the Austalian system over the UK Labour Party system.
You vote for MPs and they choose the leader. So they can dump someone quickly and effectively, and choose one that they know will appeal more to the voters.

The Labour system is cursed by too much democracy.

[rainbow]

Just the same in the UK. Abbott seems to have been deeply disliked by many though - more than most politicians are these days.

Just you wait.

Trump will break all records.

Luckily for the rest of the world what happens in OZ doesn't really matter.

[Hermit]

Back to our new Prime Minister:

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

[JimC]

One rather significant difference, Hermit. The old boss was becoming unelectable, the new boss ain't...

[mistermack]

One rather significant difference, Hermit. The old boss was becoming unelectable, the new boss ain't...

Echos of Margaret Thatcher.
But she'd been around for about a dozen years, when they stuck the knife in.

Still a great day.

If this guy's a republican, I like him already.

[Hermit]

One rather significant difference, Hermit. The old boss was becoming unelectable, the new boss ain't...

Yes, there's that. Also, Turnbull is not the fucking embarrassment that Abbott was, alternating between speechless nodding and speaking like an antediluvian moron, but in terms of governmental policy we cannot expect much at all by way of change

On his first day as PM, Turnbull has already backed away from two major policy changes he was in favour of before he was sworn in.

The prime minister made it clear that people should not expect any immediate changes in two policy areas about which he has previously been outspoken: climate policy and marriage equality. Link

He is justifying the heavy backpedalling by saying that he means to govern in a more consultative fashion than his predecessor. By consultation he does not mean the people, though. He means the Cabinet - the Cabinet, that is, which he selects later this week.

Hence: Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss