The Sun Herald (Sydney, Australia)
May 25, 2008 Sunday
First Edition

Charge of a young gun

by Paul Daley

The Libs’ man-in-waiting faces a threat by Kevin Rudd’s mate –
opportunity permitting, of course.

LIBERAL leadership speculation orbits the ambitions of one man –
Malcolm Turnbull.

It is widely assumed he will be the next leader. But perhaps it is
time to cast the net wider, to look beyond the front pages to who
might come up the middle, if and when Brendan Nelson finally stumbles,
or is tripped.

It is largely a question of timing.

Turnbull would become leader tomorrow if the leadership "blew up" –
that is, if Brendan Nelson called for a spill of leadership positions
or if Turnbull challenged. That is unlikely. But with such a febrile
atmosphere inside the Liberals it would be foolish to rule out either
eventuality; the unanticipated can have disastrously magnified
consequences.

Understand this: while he is undeniably showing his leadership wares,
Turnbull is not setting deadlines. Like most Liberals, he purportedly
believes Nelson is a short- to medium-term proposition. He will not
force the inevitable now because he does not want Nelson to say he was
not given "a fair go".

Such a cry from John Howard helped paralyse the Liberals in the late
1980s and early ’90s, after Andrew Peacock undermined his
leadership. Turnbull will not be held responsible for a repeat.

He is well aware that if Nelson’s tenure drags on into 2009, a
possible election year, another candidate may emerge.

At 42, Joe Hockey is almost eight years younger than Nelson, more than
a decade younger than Turnbull and nine years younger than deputy
leader Julie Bishop. Hockey entered Parliament in 1996 and served on
John Howard’s front bench in a string of portfolios from 1998. Nelson
made the front bench in 2001, Bishop in 2003 and Turnbull in
2006. Experience counts in politics.

Hockey is close to Kevin Rudd. He knows the Prime Minister better than
anyone else in the Opposition. He likes to tell friends: "Kevin’s a
mate. But really he’s full of shit – I know his weaknesses."

>From 2001 to 2007, Hockey and Rudd shared a weekly spot on the
Sunrise television program, where they exchanged light-hearted
banter. It helped Rudd enormously in the public recognition
stakes. Similarly, it made a political brand of Hockey, a great bear
of a man and a considerably more solid parliamentary performer than
Rudd.

Friends argue he brings a huge dose of humanity – and policy reform –
to the Liberals. His father, Richard, is of Palestinian-Armenian
descent. A Catholic, Hockey is the only person with a Palestinian
background in Federal Parliament.

In late April, he attended a ceremony in the Israeli desert capital,
Be’er Sheva, for the opening of a park to commemorate the 1917 Battle
of Beersheba when Australian Light Horsemen audaciously stormed the
Turkish trenches and captured the town. It was the beginning of the
end of hundreds of years of Ottoman occupation of Palestine.

The Beersheba story resonates with Hockey, whose paternal grandfather
was deputy administrator of the town under British mandate. Hockey
used the charge, in his maiden speech, as a metaphor for seizing
opportunity.

He was one of three Australian federal politicians at the dedication
of the park in Be’er Sheva, as the city is known today. Two heads of
state, our Governor-General Michael Jeffery and Israel’s President
Shimon Peres, were also present. But it was to Hockey that young
Australians, dressed in boardies and VB singlets, flocked for
photographs.

Little wonder NSW Labor was hugely relieved when Hockey recently ruled
out a switch to state politics, perhaps – recent reports maintain –
initially suggested by Turnbull himself to get the sizeable member for
North Sydney out of the big pond.

"We’d have been f—ed if Hockey became leader of the state Libs. He’d
win the next election," says a prominent member of the NSW
Right. Such, it seems, is the potency of the Sunrise factor.

Hockey was one of two ministers who privately urged Howard to quit in
favour of Peter Costello prior to the last election. Howard and Hockey
had not spoken properly since the election. But they have buried the
hatchet and the younger man thanked the former prime minister for the
opportunities he had given him in government.

Howard, despite last year’s loss, enjoys enormous influence. The value
of his patronage should not be dismissed.

But will Hockey get the chance? He is telling friends that "right now"
he is genuinely not interested – a politician’s answer, in every
sense, because the leadership is not vacant.

Hockey has two young children and is relishing being a far less absent
father and partner. To friends, he makes no secret of his ambition but
is not overtly promoting himself as a contender. It is an approach
that might appeal to Liberals put off by Turnbull’s bullishness.

In the near future, the Liberal leadership must decide whether to
oppose the Government’s substantive industrial relations legislation
(covering, among other things, the re-introduction of unfair dismissal
laws), thereby offering the Government a trigger for an early double
dissolution election.

The Liberals hold more than 20 seats by under 4per cent; unless things
improved dramatically, they would lose many of them.

Turnbull, it is safe to wager, is more cautious about opposing the
industrial relations legislation in the Senate, where the Coalition
has a majority until July. After that, it needs support of either
independent Nick Xenophon or Steve Fielding. Hockey, as the previous
industrial relations minister, might also think carefully about
fighting another election on that front.

The debate could yet spill into the leadership tensions. In politics,
as in life, the big opportunity arises rarely.

It is there to be seized; you cannot dictate its timing. Consider
Howard and Costello. Then consider Joe Hockey’s light horsemen.