THE blame game within the Liberal Party over the stunning loss in Wentworth at the weekend – coinciding with the release of Kevin Rudd’s memoirs – further highlights the fact that politicians rarely view the world in the same way as the rest of us.
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Independent Dr Kerryn Phelps will become the electorate’s first non-Liberal MP since Federation, representing a massive change in fortunes for the seat.
But it is typical of the major political parties that the Liberals seem less concerned right now with determining how they might win back the seat than they are with apportioning blame for the loss.
Mr Turnbull has been a popular target, first for vacating the seat after he was rolled by his colleagues as prime minister and then for failing to show his support for Dave Sharma as his replacement.
Just think about that for a moment. The Liberals, as a party, decide Mr Turnbull is no longer worthy of leading them and is rolled in an all-too-familiar coup, but those same Liberals believe he would have been the man to save Wentworth.
Only a politician could manage that confused logic.
Similarly, the Liberal Party that appears headed for a crushing defeat in the next federal election some time next year will no doubt campaign on the need for stability in its bid to remain in power.
That is, the party that came to power largely thanks to Labor’s leadership turnstile before repeating its predecessor’s mistakes not once, but twice, will try to convince the Australian people that we cannot afford the instability that would come with another change of government. Just breath-taking.
At the same time as the Liberal Party is tying itself in knots, former Labor PM Kevin Rudd has released his memoirs to offer personal insights on his time in the spotlight.
If the excerpts are anything to go by, the Liberal Party does not have a monopoly on a skewed political view of the world. Far from it.
One of Mr Rudd’s failings as a leader was an inability to accept there might be valid opinions other than his own and it would seem time out of politics has not tempered that view.
The excerpts paint a picture of a man who remains convinced he was the only blameless participant in two political coups – his own and Julia Gillard’s.
There’s such a fine line between comedy and tragedy.
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