Andrew P Street - The Curious Story of Malcolm Turnbull, the Incredible Shrinking Man in the Top Hat

In which we leave the Man in the Top Hat to face the challenges of governing in a new world of compromise

As these last words are being written, at the beginning of August 2016, the signs for Australia arent great. Interest rates have been cut yet again, indicating that all those warnings about dire consequences of Brexit/Trump/a Chinese slowdown are not inspiring consumer or business confidence; Turnbulls turnabout refusal to rubber-stamp the nomination of former prime minister Kevin Rudd as a candidate for secretary-general of the United Nations has raised even more questions about the degree to which he is at the mercy of his right wing; the final recount of the seat of Herbert has confirmed that the Coalition has a single-seat majority in parliament (although the government is currently weighing up whether or not to mount a legal challenge to hold the election in the seat over againhey, what does Turnbull have to lose?); and party instability is still manifesting in leaks, backgrounding against Turnbull, and public threats from MPs like George Christensen to cross the floor if they dont get their way.

And with that fragile one-seat majoritywhich vanishes once a Speaker is appointedthose threats cant be laughed off. As a delighted Bob Katter warned during his rambling in July, You try running a government with one vote up your sleeve. Dont have your mother die, because you cant go to the funeral! Dont go to the bathroom!

And, exhaustingly, this is all before parliament has even sat. Once that happens therell be the Royal Commission into Youth Detention in the Northern Territory, the joint sitting over the ABCC legislation, some sort of movement towards the marriage equality plebiscite, and all those still-unpassed budget details, no doubt accompanied by angry cries of b-b-but we have a mandate! as the wildly disparate Senate crossbench merrily knocks them back. Given the fairly differentindeed, competingphilosophies of the South Australian Xenophon-led centrists and Hansons regional protectionists, that, to put it mildly, is going to be a challenge.

Meanwhile, Tony Abbott took to Four Corners to decry the dangerous and potentially corrupt factionalism affecting the NSW Liberal Party which, purely by coincidence, is currently determined by the faction that supports Turnbull rather than Abbott, putting the PM in the invidious position of either being seen to support a dodgy system that benefits him or supporting democratic reforms that would undermine his authority.

Its fair to say that the Man in the Top Hat is in for some colourful times.

Its incredibly easyand a whole lot of fun!to predict seismic changes in the political sphere and declare that Things Will Never Be The Same. And for all of the talk that the 2016 election marks the end of the two-party system, the major parties have proven remarkably resilient in the face of confident predictions of their death.

After the 2007 Ruddslide election the papers were filled with editorials predicting that it would take a generation or more for the vanquished Liberal Party to recover from its devastating loss. Indeed, more than one pundit posited that wed just seen the end of the leftright divide and that the future of Australian politics would be between the forces of industry and the challenges of the environment, with Labor and the Greens duking it out, while the Liberals and Nationals yelled impotently from the sidelines.

That, as you may have noticed, didnt happen.

Similarly, the 2013 Ruddrout unambiguously meant that Labor was finished, with its left-wing voter support haemorrhaging to the Greens and the centrists flocking to the sensible, responsible Coalition, in a sure sign that the nation was headed for another Menzies/Howard-style era of careful conservatism. There was no way that Bill Shorten could possibly last more than a few pitiful months as leader.

That, too, proved a somewhat ambitious reading of the situation.

So where does the future actually stand? Heres a confident guess: on the middle ground.

Thats probably the single safest, smuggest prediction in the history of safe, smug predictions, because Australian politics has always been a battle for the middle. The crisis facing the major parties is partly how to reconcile their internal divisionsworker rights versus neoliberal globalisation in the case of Labor; small government liberal economics versus intrusive moral and social control for the Coalitionand partly how they deal with the question of where their middle ground support has gone. And make no mistake: neither party has won the hearts and minds of the nation. The 2016 election could be a blip, or we could be about to embark on a dramatic future of multi-party coalitions.

Its just barely possible that NXT and One Nation may make the move from being transit lounges for protest voters to becoming the established alternative parties of the grumpy centre and the furious right respectivelyattracting disenchanted (mainly) Liberal and National voters to their respective camps. Then again, the pungent miasma rising from the cemetery of Australias minor parties is a potent reminder that even the most vigorous have a sad history of being prematurely dumped unmourned into shallow graves.

Even as you read this, Coalition pollies will have already made overtures to the innocent, enthusiastic new minor party senators, suggesting that they should maybe share a drink and talk about how things work in the big, confusing upper house. And if one thing leads to another, and said senators should realise that jumping ship would give them even more legislative power, while not having to obey Xenophon/Hanson, then wheres the harm? After all, that line of persuasion worked for Labor with the then-leader of the Australian Democrats, Senator Cheryl Kernot, back in 1997.

Then again, that can also be a humiliating disaster for all concerned. Like with Labor and the then-leader of the Australian Democrats, Senator Cheryl Kernot, back in 1997.

Perhaps the most shocking thing about the current state of Australian politics is that so many of the newly divisive issues are stark reminders of everything weve lostor, more accurately, allowed to be slowly eroded from underneath uscourtesy of economic and social forces largely directed by our governments.

The reintroduction of the ABCC reminds us of the power that unions once wielded, when the idea of constant improvements in working conditions was casually assumed and the government had to invent a construction sector Stasi to bring them down. The cruel debates were having now over the supposed need to remove weekend penalty rates would never have gained traction in 1996. How did we end up accepting the heavily casualised, wage-frozen, arrive-at-dawn-and-leave-after-dark workforce that is so standard in Australia as to be unremarkable? When exactly did we sacrifice the working week in return for timid wage slavery?

The return of One Nation, amid discussions of Indigenous recognition, should remind us of the Australia that existed before Pauline Hanson turned upwhen multiculturalism was (correctly) seen as one of Australias greatest strengths; when we were starting to regard ourselves as a player in Asia, rather than as a European afterthought; when it seemed that the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody would be a game-changer that would finally see concrete steps taken towards improving the lives of our most marginalised. Hell, it was all but assumed that an honest-to-god treaty was an inevitable next step from the Mabo ruling on native title. How did we get so badly sidetracked, to the point where we are now bickering over recognition?

An entire generation of Australians are about to become lifetime renters. Home ownership in our largest cities is now framed as a privilege for which great sacrifices are demanded, rather than as a perfectly reasonable expectation for a working family. There was a time when full employment was an explicit goal of every federal government, when a job for life was the norm and the idea of a quarter-acre house in the suburbs, within easy commuting distance, was so common as to be a mock-worthy stereotype. Now it seems like an idyllic fantasy to an increasing number of Australians, while the very-well-off panic about their retirement investments becoming worthless if theres a housing crash. Whos happier for it? No-one exactly seems to be winning.