Labor MPs have put on a brave face and begun seeking to tarnish Malcolm Turnbull’s trustworthiness as prime minister after the Liberal leadership change threatened to revive the Coalition’s popularity in the leadup to the next election.
Labor, which has led the Coalition in major opinion polls since last year, had been hoping to face Tony Abbott at the general election due in 2016 because of his entrenched negative approval ratings and his association with broken promises.
But the elevation of the far more popular Turnbull poses a serious test for the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, who has also been struggling with low personal approval ratings and until now focused his attacks on Abbott and the treasurer, Joe Hockey.
The Labor party wasted no time rolling out a television advertisement to air in Western Australia before Saturday’s Canning byelection.
It includes quotes from Turnbull, in a radio interview last year, pledging that he supported “unreservedly and wholeheartedly” all measures outlined in the poorly received 2014 budget including Medicare co-payments, higher education reforms and changes to family payments.
“The Liberals have brought in a leader who’s just as out of touch as the last,” says the narrator. The advertisement features pictures of Turnbull and Abbott and seeks to link the pair through their combined support for “unfair” budget measures.
Privately, Labor insiders said they “absolutely” would have preferred to face Abbott at the next election, but insisted the elevation of Turnbull presented other opportunities. They believe the perception of arrogance will be a potent weapon against Turnbull, along with the suggestion that he has sold out his principles to get the top job. There is also uncertainty about the reaction of furious supporters of Abbott, including Hockey, who is tipped to be replaced as treasurer.
In a speech to Labor colleagues on Tuesday, Shorten said the Liberal party had “panicked” and elected a new leader but “it’s the same old stuff rebadged as new”. The developments did not change the fundamentals, which included high unemployment and low economic growth.
“This country needs no more showmen, it actually just needs substance. In order to gain the Liberal party leadership and the prime ministership, Malcolm Turnbull has sold out all of the things which he always said were very important to him,” Shorten told the caucus meeting.
“Australians understand the thing about Malcolm is it’s always about Malcolm.”
Shorten said Labor MPs and senators could hold their heads high and claim credit for the “genesis” of the toppling of Abbott after their strong stand against the Coalition’s budget measures.
“We have seen off one bad Liberal prime minister and we will do this again,” he said. “If you want a new direction in this country you’ve got to vote for a new government: a Shorten Labor government.”
There is no sign of a move against Shorten’s own leadership, and the rules put in place by the former prime minister Kevin Rudd could complicate any such push.
Rudd, who was ousted in 2010 before defeating Julia Gillard shortly before the 2013 election, championed the rule changes in a bid to end the leadership revolving door.
Under the rules, a push to remove a sitting Labor prime minister part-way through a term would require support from 75% of the caucus, but there is a lower threshold of 60% to remove a Labor opposition leader. However, Labor sources have confirmed that caucus is the master of its own destiny so, in theory, a challenge could occur if supported by more than 50% of the caucus.
Labor’s communications spokesman, Jason Clare, said the party had learned the lesson about leadership changes when it was last in government, and he played down the prospect of a move against Shorten if Turnbull built a strong poll lead.
“One of the good things that we did in government was change our rules to make sure that this sort of nonsense that happened last night in the Liberal party won’t happen in the Labor party,” he said.
Clare immediately began targeting target Turnbull over his “failure as communications minister”, the blowout in the cost of “his second-rate version” of the national broadband network, and his arrogance.
“In fairness to him, it’s hard to be in touch with the needs of working people when you are a multimillionaire that lives in a pink mansion on Sydney Harbour,” Clare said.
“That’s his problem. Last time he was leader of his party people read this bloke pretty clearly and realised that he was an arrogant, out of touch multimillionaire and they will make the same judgment.”
Labor’s deputy leader, Tanya Plibersek, said the Coalition “didn’t learn anything from the difficulties that Labor experienced in government”, although she conceded the government could get a short-term “sugar hit” in the opinion polls.
Plibersek characterised Turnbull as an arrogant person lacking in judgment and someone who had sold out his beliefs in order to chase his ambitions, and said people would “quickly come to see that smoothness as a sort of slick merchant banker approach to public life”. She played down the difficulties facing Shorten.
“The fact that Tony Abbott was knocked off last night is due to the fact that Bill Shorten has lead a fantastic campaign against the government. Bill Shorten has seen off one Liberal leader, he’ll see off the next one at the general election,” Plibersek told the ABC.
Labor’s transport spokesman and former deputy prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said there was no doubt the development would “lead to a change in the political dynamic” but Turnbull had displayed “a range of failings” when was the leader of the Liberal opposition.
Albanese, who opposed the ousting of Rudd in 2010, said removing a first-term elected prime minister was “a very big call” and would inevitably fuel internal turmoil in the Coalition.
“There were a range of issues where I used to have a line – I’ll have to think of new ones now with Malcolm Turnbull – but Tony Abbott was stuck in the past and he did want Australia to be held back there,” Albanese told the Nine Network.
“There’s no doubt Malcolm Turnbull is a much more modern person, but that advantage I think, we’ll need to see how that plays out, because there’s also a big disadvantage, because there’s no doubt that the Australian public will feel, particularly some of the Liberal party faithful will feel that the wrong thing was done last night.”
Labor’s shadow assistant treasurer, Andrew Leigh, acknowledged Turnbull was “a good speaker” but pointed to his budget stance and his potential to disappoint supporters of same-sex marriage and strong action on climate change.
Turnbull, in his pitch to Liberals when he launched his leadership challenge on Monday, warned his colleagues that Shorten was on track to win the next election if Abbott remained in the top job.
The re-elected deputy Liberal leader, Julie Bishop, told the Seven Network on Tuesday she believed a Turnbull-led government would “expose the weaknesses and the vacuum within the Labor party”.
