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BBefore meeting Scott Morrison in his yard and Julia Banks in Parliament, I want to go back in January 2013.
Premiers routinely make a speech to the National Press Club just after the day of Australia to open the new political year. Julia Gillard decided in 2013 to launch a great success: she announced the timing of the next federal election in eight months. advanced.
Given the element (surprise!) Of the electoral calendar, one of the last benefits of the election of the outgoing president is not a sign of strength. Gillard's announcement is one of the last remnants of the prime minister's power in the days of small government.
She was trying to restore a government convulsed by internal divisions and to keep Rudd's forces at bay.
The reset did not work for Gillard, and Tuesday's game would not have worked for Morrison either, even though Banks had not acted with exquisite timing in the House of Representatives and torpedoed him.
Let's be clear. Morrison entered his court Tuesday morning and telegraphed the timing of the elections (May 11 or 18) and the way forward to get there because his government is absolutely on the ropes.
The Prime Minister wanted to let his colleagues and any elector who was on watch know that it was necessary to hold out because good news was forthcoming: the government would reveal a stronger fiscal position in the mid-term economic forecasts. -year in December. then a "surplus budget" next April.
All this will come, good guys, was the subtext. We just have to hang on and not lose our collective spirit.
Now, how can I say it politely? If you have to hold a press conference to say that, to put it on a big, vibrant and thrilling Fabulous ™ display panel, you're already in the trap, and everyone knows it.
There is no need to force success or manage it on stage, it happens and people notice it. Alone.
Although the government remains convinced that we must extend the lead to give us the best chance of political recovery, some have come to believe that Morrison should go to an election as soon as possible, because the current situation seems terminal and longer. spending time scoring could make matters worse rather than better.
If voters begin to suspect that the government is delaying the inevitability of keeping government members on seats for another few months, it could increase the death toll, the logic continues, since voters are very fed up with Circus of Canberra.
The sound of the Prime Minister's trumpet in the court consisted, at least in part, of getting rid of this rampant fatalism, of trying to draw an alternative reality in which the last chapter was, in a way, a triumph and not an end .
Then came Banks, with a brief and precise explanation of why she could no longer sit with her colleagues in the Liberal Party – a grim reminder of the chasm that continues to open despite Morrison's efforts to distance him.
Banks is an outsider of politics and has struggled against the perverse realities of culture as it manifests itself in 2018 and against the dominant boys' club in conservative politics.
She did not hide her horror when the Conservatives took a stand against Malcolm Turnbull in August and she has not masked her deep alienation ever since.
Tuesday's defection was a shock, but it was not a surprise.
For now, the government party hall has created a somewhat mournful atmosphere, where MPs are not in a position to speak honestly for fear of their contributions fleeing and creating more problems – or because people have started to fall back on themselves, which is a natural human response to adversity of a magnitude beyond your control.
And for the future, surplus or non-surplus budget, there is only adversity as far as the eye can see.
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