Liberal Party (Australia) Leadership Ballot - Sept. 14

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Maggie chose to stand down before the inevitable hammering by Hezza, tho.

Yes, she had more self-respect than Abbott.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I wonder what the Right will do now. In particular the Cory Bernardi's of the party.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Great... hope Turncoatbull loses the next election, the Liberals really need to rebuild! The fact that we're stuck with him as PM for another year makes me shudder!

Yes, terrible you end up with someone who has a chance to connect with the middle-Australia that wins elections. The Coalition needs to speak to the non-ideological voters on kitchen-table issues and speak to the better angels of people's nature, not their baser instincts.

I truly hope the next election has a better chance of being a contest of ideas.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Hilarious.

[Blair]

As much as I dislike Abbott this is bad for Labor right?

[afleitch]

Hilarious.

Wrong thread

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

As much as I dislike Abbott this is bad for Labor right?

For the time being anyway. It's worth remembering that Mal's time as Opposition Leader was widely ridiculed and panned as elitist and poorly run, so he may offer false hope (see also: the return of KRudd).

[YL]

Well, good riddance to Abbott.

Are these things becoming more common, or is it just Rudd v. Gillard distorting the records?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Fantastic news! All of Australia must be sighing in relief...

[Phony Moderate]

Fantastic news! All of Australia must be sighing in relief...

Why? It means another decade of Lib government...

[Talleyrand]

So Abbott still hasn't given a statement. Very ungracious.

It should be noted that both Kevin Rudd (yes, even him) and Julia Gillard faced the cameras immediately after far more brutal coups.

As for Turnbull, I'm cautiously optimistic he'll be a decent supporter. You can probably expect the Coalition to take a decisive lead in the polls soon.

[DC Al Fine]

I still find it bizarre how quickly the knives come out in Australia. There are two reasonably similar times this happened in Canada (Dief '67, and Clark '83), and in both cases the enemies of the leader didn't try anything until they had actually lost an election

[Vosem]

I still find it bizarre how quickly the knives come out in Australia. There are two reasonably similar times this happened in Canada (Dief '67, and Clark '83), and in both cases the enemies of the leader didn't try anything until they had actually lost an election

Or, in Dief's case, two consecutively

But, in Canada as I understand it, it's much harder to force a spill motion -- for instance, I've read that a majority of Liberal Party members preferred Paul Martin over Jean Chretien starting from the late '90s, but Chretien still hung on until 2003.

[Hatman 🍁]

Such a move in Canada would backfire electorally.  People here think the PM is like the President, so trying to oust him would be like a coup, and would sink the party deep in the polls for doing something undemocratic. A party would have to be absolutely toxic to risk that.

[2952-0-0]

Is there a chance Turnbull will call an election a year early to take advantage of the honeymoon and silence internal dissent? Or would that backfire like in Alberta five months ago?

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Is there a chance Turnbull will call an election a year early to take advantage of the honeymoon and silence internal dissent? Or would that backfire like in Alberta five months ago?

No idea, his comments so far have been about the Parliament running its term. But if they get a decent bounce, I wouldn't put it past them to manufacture some kind of excuse to go early.

[Wake Me Up When The Hard Border Ends]

Is there a chance Turnbull will call an election a year early to take advantage of the honeymoon and silence internal dissent? Or would that backfire like in Alberta five months ago?

No idea, his comments so far have been about the Parliament running its term. But if they get a decent bounce, I wouldn't put it past them to manufacture some kind of excuse to go early.

I think it would backfire, plus it would be a House-only election at this point in time, unless the double dissolution triggers (from when Abbott was in office) are used, and I don't think Turnbull will do that.

[Phony Moderate]

http://newsthump.com/2015/09/14/australian-pm-ousted-after-losing-drinking-competition/

[Citizen Hats]

Such a move in Canada would backfire electorally.  People here think the PM is like the President, so trying to oust him would be like a coup, and would sink the party deep in the polls for doing something undemocratic. A party would have to be absolutely toxic to risk that.

It's more that such processes don't have formal mechanism it seems.  When Gordon Campbell quit it was because the caucus was moving against him, but not because someone called a formal vote. It was simply and painfully made apparent to him that he did not have the confidence of the party. 

The closes similarity I can think of in recent years was the fall of Carol James' leadership of the BCNDP.  That was fairly swift, and ended in a caucus meeting in Vancouver where the handing out of pro-james scarves was somewhat polarizing

[Hatman 🍁]

A formal mechanism doesn't exist because it wouldn't be seen as democratic.

A similar scenario happened in Manitoba, where Selinger had the voters (well, NDP members) choose who to be leader. I think this is what Canadians would expect. Either the leader sees the writing on the wall and resigns, or puts it up to a vote of the membership (not the MPs/MLAs)

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Is there a chance Turnbull will call an election a year early to take advantage of the honeymoon and silence internal dissent? Or would that backfire like in Alberta five months ago?

No idea, his comments so far have been about the Parliament running its term. But if they get a decent bounce, I wouldn't put it past them to manufacture some kind of excuse to go early.

I think it would backfire, plus it would be a House-only election at this point in time, unless the double dissolution triggers (from when Abbott was in office) are used, and I don't think Turnbull will do that.

It would be a DD without a shadow of a doubt. But I'm 95% sure they'll go by March.

[DL]

A formal mechanism doesn't exist because it wouldn't be seen as democratic.

A similar scenario happened in Manitoba, where Selinger had the voters (well, NDP members) choose who to be leader. I think this is what Canadians would expect. Either the leader sees the writing on the wall and resigns, or puts it up to a vote of the membership (not the MPs/MLAs)

You are forgetting that in Canada party leaders have been toppled at party conventions when there has been a leadership review that didn't pass some imaginary threshold. In 1982 Joe Clark was toppled as PC leader when he only got 67% of his one party to support him. He then ran to succeed himself and lost. Similarly Ralph Klein quit as Premier and Alberta PC leader after he only got a 55% vote of confidence in a leadership review.

[Hatman 🍁]

A formal mechanism doesn't exist because it wouldn't be seen as democratic.

A similar scenario happened in Manitoba, where Selinger had the voters (well, NDP members) choose who to be leader. I think this is what Canadians would expect. Either the leader sees the writing on the wall and resigns, or puts it up to a vote of the membership (not the MPs/MLAs)

You are forgetting that in Canada party leaders have been toppled at party conventions when there has been a leadership review that didn't pass some imaginary threshold. In 1982 Joe Clark was toppled as PC leader when he only got 67% of his one party to support him. He then ran to succeed himself and lost. Similarly Ralph Klein quit as Premier and Alberta PC leader after he only got a 55% vote of confidence in a leadership review.

This is not the same thing. In those instances, it was party members doing. In Australia, it was just the caucus.

[Zanas]

A formal mechanism doesn't exist because it wouldn't be seen as democratic.

A similar scenario happened in Manitoba, where Selinger had the voters (well, NDP members) choose who to be leader. I think this is what Canadians would expect. Either the leader sees the writing on the wall and resigns, or puts it up to a vote of the membership (not the MPs/MLAs)

You are forgetting that in Canada party leaders have been toppled at party conventions when there has been a leadership review that didn't pass some imaginary threshold. In 1982 Joe Clark was toppled as PC leader when he only got 67% of his one party to support him. He then ran to succeed himself and lost. Similarly Ralph Klein quit as Premier and Alberta PC leader after he only got a 55% vote of confidence in a leadership review.

This is not the same thing. In those instances, it was party members doing. In Australia, it was just the caucus.

Yeah, the fact that the Prime Minister of the 15-ish world power can be toppled by nothing more than a vote among a bunch of a hundred of party apparatchiks is... unsettling, to say the least. Makes Australia look a bit sovietic, tbh, and not in the good sense of the word.

[DL]

Margaret Thatcher was dumped by her own caucus in 1990 as well