Malcolm Turnbull’s tenacious UteGate attacks were a serious miscalculation. It seems that it’s not a case of the public “not caring” about the issue – but rather caring that they had to continue putting up with an issue that nobody but Turnbull cared about.
He’s now a less popular leader than Costello (who has announced his retirement) and Joe Hockey. As usual, Peter Hartcher’s SMH analysis is worth a read.
Does anybody actually care about Utegate?
K-Rudd isn’t going to resign. Swan isn’t going to resign. Turnbull isn’t going to resign. The guy from the public service is going to get fired jailed. It seems he’ll be the only one remembering this whole saga a year from now.
What I think would be awesome would be if the alchopops thing is the trigger for a double dissolution. Imagine being the Prime Minister booted out for trying to make grog more expensive. That’ll play in headlines all over the world.
I also hate the way we add “gate” to the end of every political scandal. It didn’t happen in the Watergate building so it’s not analogous.
I hope K-Rudd is learning his lesson about how it pays to be nice to your public servants and not make them work at break neck speed. They’ve claimed his Defense Minister and now they’re after him.