LogFAQs > #936290567

TreyFlowers posted...

Also - Turnbull to me felt like a Labor politician trying to steer the Liberal party. I always liked Turnbull, he led the country with a lot of grace. He's a fuckton better than Scomo.

I felt like that for a while too. I liked him for the fact that he kept his head down, and he actually seemed like a capable leader. I think it's a travesty that some scumbag like Peter Dutton fucked his career like they did, since Turnbull seemed like a competent, middle of the road career politician instead of these extreme LNP cowboys.

I've been listening to the Betoota Advocate podcast recently though - dunno if you know it, but the Betoota Advocate is a satirical news paper in the same vein as the Onion or the Chaser. Their stories take the piss out of everything, and they're usually based on actual happenings around the country. The podcast started just before the Scomo leadership spill, so I caught a few glimpses of Turnbull at work in between the silly news articles - and while I can respect him for not being a batshit insane human being, I still think he was a prominent cog in the LNP machine - just a more moderate one.

For as moderate and agreeable as he was as a politician, he signed in tax cuts for corporations in line with the LNP's modus operandi. I think he got a lot of crap for being kind of distant and aloof at the time, though even on his worst day I think he was a better leader than Abbott or Morrison. I don't have a lot of criticism for him, but he did grant corporate tax cuts in 2018 and I'm very much against that.

Otherwise, Turnbull was a port in a storm. He wasn't perfect - I don't think that the LNP could put out a PM for the people in their current state, the Liberals need to split from the Nationals and cull the extremist rhetoric exemplified by Tony Abbott and his fanatical supporters. But between "Stop The Boats", "Financial Crisis" Tony Abbott and "AFP Raid", "Holidaying during a national disaster" Scott Morrison, Turnbull was a respectable man with the decorum and respect for office that Australia has been sorely lacking. That's why I mostly focused on Abbott and Morrison in my prior post - Turnbull was unremarkable in many ways, but his unremarkability was because he shut his mouth, did his job and offered urgently needed commentary in times of crisis - in short, he acted like a leader, not a soundbite-spewing, quipping "everybloke" jackass who wanted to endear himself to the people in every interview while he fucked the "everyblokes" and their families in the next breath.

While I don't agree with the LNP policy he pushed through, I can agree that Turnbull was a good man, and a far finer leader than the PMs he's sandwiched between. Even with the rockier parts of his tenure, I fully stand by my comment of Malcolm Turnbull being "a port in a storm".

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