Malcolm Turnbull smoothly executed coup to the top job was greeted with a combination of relief & hope by the majority of voters who were tired of the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd infighting & Abbott's Captain calls style of leadership & were looking for an intelligent steady hand statesman to lead Australia.
And in Turnbull that is what they got…..at least initially. And the voters extended the honeymoon period as they gave Malcolm Turnbull the benefit of the doubt. The honeymoon still continues, albeit with some shine coming of it since before Christmas.
With five Ministers gone & one MP trying unsuccessfully to defect to his National coalition partners, the gloss is starting to come off. (to paraphrase Oscar Wilde "To lose one Minister may be regarded as misfortune, to lose 5 looks like chaos!"
But whilst reshuffles are part & parcel of governance, it is the apparent lack of a coherent policy framework & in particular economic leadership that is starting to hurt the Turnbull/Morrison team.
This is particular because on the day Turnbull challenged Abbott, he specified "economic leadership" as the main reason for his decision to challenge. This is what he said:
'It is clear enough that the Government is not successful in providing the economic leadership that we need……It is not the fault of individual ministers. Ultimately, the Prime Minister has not been capable of providing the economic leadership our nation needs."
I have said in a previous post Malcolm Turnbull's challenge is to address GST/taxation reform, the inflexibility of the IR Laws & Fair Work Legislation & Australia's infrastructure deficit.
The PM has now ruled out an increase in the GST & is still procrastinating with negative gearing, superannuation tax & company tax rates (currently 30% compared to e.g. 17% in Singapore & average of 20% in OECD).
Most commentators are now leaning towards predicting a benign budget with potentially the opportunity for an overhaul of Australia's complex burdensome Tax System gone due to the PM's cautious approach.
The danger with PM's cautious approach & procrastination is that he may end up not addressing issues of national significance, such as taxation & IR reform, & instead decide to salvage his legacy by going after what he cab get by e.g. promoting Harper's Competition Report in order to appear to be a "reformist Prime Minister".
An case in point is the community pharmacy sector. Successive & continuous cuts to funding to pharmaceutical companies & pharmacists have helped to sustain Australia's world class prescription medicines subsidy scheme (PBS) and have so far saved the health budget in excess of $4 billion with forward estimates suggesting another $4 to $5 billion of savings in the next few years to come.
The sector has dealt with very tough funding cuts & is reform fatigued. Pharmacists in particular have worked cooperatively with successive Governments & generated billions of dollars of savings for both Labor & Liberal budgets & forward estimates.
Malcolm Turnbull must show courage & go for the big guns, i.e. to reform Australia's Taxation & IR issues & to address our infrastructure problems. anything else & his time as PM will follow the disappointing path of his 3 immediate predecessors!
