Getting down to business

Malcolm Turnbull’s diverse career brings new qualities to the prime ministership, but he will need to be careful his larger-than-life persona doesn’t wear thin So far, there have been no real surprises. The parlous Canning by-election in Western Australia was always going to test Tony Abbott’s hold on the prime ministership, and in the age of continuous polling there was no need to wait for the actual vote. Malcolm Turnbull’s election as Liberal Party leader was always likely to be well received by the media and the public. A Galaxy poll taken shortly after the change of leadership showed the Coalition marginally ahead of Labor, with Turnbull a long way in front of Shorten as preferred prime minister; in Canning, the swing of around 7 per cent (rather than the forecast of around 10 per cent) suggests that voters have begun moving back to the government. And Turnbull’s first ministerial reshuffle seems to have emphatically set the government on a new course… Read the full articl