It’s a sad day in politics when politicians start using Twitter and Facebook to help them make decisions. That is the case in Australia at present as one major political party goes into total melt down. Australia only has two major political parties, the ALP and the Liberal party. The ALP currently holds power and it seems will continue to do so for quite some time – at least until the Liberal party can get their act together.
Joe Hockey, a probable candidate to take over as leader of the party at some time in the near future, is now using Twitter and Facebook get feedback on climate change issues – specifically a bill before parliament that will bring in a carbon credit system together with a carbon emission reduction goal. This legislation has torn the Liberal party apart – hence Joe Hockey’s use of social media.
He has been a staunch supporter of current leader Malcolm Turnbull and the his efforts to broker a deal related to the new legislation. He is now trying to find an out for this support and is using Twitter and Facebook to help him. At the end of the day he will say that public support is not behind Malcolm Turnbull or the government so he is going to reverse his stance.
That’s pretty weak. First, Twitter and Facebook are not representative of the Australian population. Second, unless someone actually counts every response, we only have his word for the end results, and finally, people use situations like this to gain an advantage. I would love to know how many new followers he received over the last few days and how many of them offered the advice he wants to hear.
This is politics and we all know how two faced they can all be. Tony Abbott was one of the biggest supporters of this legislation a couple of months ago. In fact he was quite up front in promoting it and urging the Liberal party leadership to support it. Guess what, when things got tough he was the first to jump ship and swap sides – and then throw his hat into the ring for the job of party leader.
Am I cynical – you bet. This hasn’t nothing to do with the environment the new legislation – this has just been the issue used to create a disturbance in the party room to force the removal of Malcolm Turnbull. He is his own worst enemy. He is too aloof, too much of a control freak, and just not likable enough to get away with it like Kevin Rudd does (he is also a control freak).
As for Joe Hockey – surely he is not a political suicide freak. Anyone who takes on the leadership job now is on a hiding to nothing. The Liberals will get badly mauled at the next election – only a year away now. If I was Joe, I would step away and let Abbott take the job. Let him take the bruises, and, like every other losing party leader, lose his job after the next election. Then he can step in and rebuild the broken party. Turnbull needs to do a Howard. Howard lost the job of opposition leader and sat back and let everyone else do the hard work. When the time was right he stepped back into the limelight and the rest is history.
Where to know for the Liberals. I guess they will all be heading to Twitter and Facebook to find out who the public wants to see as leader. They may as well – they can’t make a decent decision themselves!
