Australia: Comments on the Recent Leadership Ructions, by James Doogue.

According to left wing media commentators, Tony Abbott is a destructive wrecker.

The truth is more likely Abbott may have helped the Liberal Party avoid an electoral decimation from which they may never have recovered. …

Election campaign logo in 2016: Where does it say “Liberal Party?”

Turnbull stated categorically that he would only be prepared to lead a party which was committed to his idea of action on climate change. The public were not convinced, and neither was the Liberal party which gave Tony Abbott the opportunity to challenge for the leadership. Turnbull was narrowly replaced by Tony Abbott in December 2009. Malcolm Turnbull and his admiring left wing media were of course furious. …

[When Abbott was PM, Turnbull] famously tried to distance himself from a number of key Liberal Party policies. He said that Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers was cruel. He refused to endorse the Coalition’s climate change policy and continued to snipe at climate change skeptics. The left wing media loved that about him.

During this time the media didn’t characterize his behaviour as ‘destructive’ or ‘wrecking’ or even disloyal. They encouraged the behavior. As a cabinet member Turnbull had a moral obligation to maintain cabinet solidarity on cabinet policy decisions. He didn’t, Abbott didn’t sack him, and the media loved Turnbull for it.

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