Malcolm Turnbull Just Keeps Picking Fights With Right-Wing Commentators

Malcolm Turnbull may or may not covet Tony Abbott’s Liberal leadership, but he certainly has himself a case of the red mist lately.

Turnbull spent the early part of the week engaged in a running battle with Andrew Bolt over Bolt’s claims that the member for Wentworth was positioning himself for a challenge to Tony Abbott’s leadership. Bolt had stitched his argument together with safety pins and a washed up piece of kelp, so Turnbull called him out on it, describing everyone’s favourite armchair eugenicist as ‘unhinged’ and ‘deranged’.

On 2GB this morning, though, Turnbull found himself in another scrap with a shrill far-right media commentator, Alan Jones. The interview started in bizarre fashion, with Jones asking that Turnbull recite a weird oath of allegiance to the Abbot/Hockey budget, or somesuch. Turnbull gruffly declined, telling Jones, “I’m not going to take dictation form you.”

Jones then called Turnbull a ‘bomb-thrower’: a bit of so’s-your-face followed, before Turnbull observed that in fostering division within the party, Jones was doing the work of Labor. Needless to say, Jones didn’t like this. When Turnbull said that his supposed leadership aspirations were being conjured out of thin air by Jones, Bolt and their ilk, Jones countered thus: “You’ve got no hope — ever — of being the leader: you’ve got to get that into your head.” Sick burn.

Jones, of course, has made a career out of being an obnoxious bully. Politicians stake their careers on offering up a bland agreeable facade to the world at all times. This is why when MPs sign the Faustian pact that is appearing on Jones’ program, they basically have to cop an almighty trash-talking. Spunky Mal, though, wasn’t having a bar of it.

But what was he even doing there? What did the coalition have to gain from the whole debacle? One possibility is that Turnbull was working on Abbott’s behalf to bring the coalition’s centre-right constituents back on board by getting on the front foot against the the cartoonish libertarians that the centre abhors.

Another possibility is that the whole thing is a big diversion to take attention off the budget. I like to think, though, that Malcolm has gone rogue and, adrenaline pumping through his veins, he’s just picking fights with whoever crosses his path: cashiers, toll-booth operators, slow walkers, far-right shock-jocks, anyone. Be careful out there, kids.

See below for the Fairfax summary and audio, see here for the Daily Mail‘s view:

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