"Abbott could be dumped within a week"

[quote]PRIME Minister Tony Abbott will be thrown out of the top job within a week, according to a former speech writer for Paul Keating and Kim Beazley.

Bob Ellis, a long-time writer and Labor supporter, wrote in his blog this week that Mr Abbott would be overthrown by next Thursday or Friday and replaced by Peter Dutton, Greg Hunt or Malcolm Turnbull.

He has also tipped that Joe Hockey could be dumped as Treasurer after the government’s unpopular budget.

Mr Ellis based his prediction on the faces of LNP MPs during Question Time this week as Mr Abbott was hammered over the budget.[/quote]

Thoughts? Grain of salt?

Being this guy was the speech writer for 2 former Labor leaders (1 who was a PM), I can understand the bias, but after the news I’ve been reading this week of Abbott shooting down Pyne’s Death Tax proposal, and LNP MPs also criticising their own party’s plans, I’m not surprised by this.

I’ve seen this article elsewhere. Quite apart from his former job bear in mind there is already bad blood between Abbott and Ellis: http://australianpolitics.com/1999/03/05/abbott-costello-ellis-defamation-action.html

It won’t happen unless he stays at -30% approval for a long time. Years, maybe.

I wouldn’t be certain on that.
True Liberal party is going to be reluctant to perform the Rudd/Gillard maneuver but when a leader gets on the nose its time to depose. Ultimately the party wants to retain power and aren’t prepared to lose it for Abbott or Hockey’s sake.

If ALP Greens and PUP actually were intending to block the budget you could see a Cabinet shuffle overnight as they are well aware of how disastrous a double dissolution could be at this point.

I’ll believe it when I see #libspill trending on Twitter. :smile:

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So you’ve believed it three times now at least, haha.

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A #libspill happening isn’t necessarily a good thing for us. Turnbull’s shown his true colours to all of us political wonks who constantly follow the news, but to the average voter he still practically smells of daisies. Him taking the reins might marginally improve things in the short term, but it’s also potentially going to give the coalition a better result at the next election, and that’s the last thing we want.

Whether Turnbull would be a good thing depends on your read. It could be read as an empowerment for the coalition over labor, but it could also be read an empowerment of (relative) sanity over reactionary, anti-science politics and the confinement of latter to the fringes. Probably worth it for my money.

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One day to go and the prediction is close to being true if you believe the rattlings of Bolt and Jones vs. Turnbull over the last few days.

If Turnbull got in, we’d still have a party dominated by demented sociopaths, but with a smooth salesperson in front.

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Just saw this article/post. You can imagine my disappointment when I saw it was 11 days old…

Well, he’s overseas at the moment making an arse of himself and
increasingly giving us more reasons to disown him, so I won’t be surprised
if it happens shortly after he returns.

Still PM, but his backbench is openly questioning ministers now in Parliament.