Disloyal, lazy, no balls: it's time to move on, Peter

• John Hewson
• February 22, 2009
• http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/disloyal-lazy-no-balls-its-time-to-move-on-peter-20090221-8e6v.html?page=-1

PETER. Enough is enough. If your few remaining mates won't tell you, I will. You've had a fair go. If you now won't give others a chance and pull your weight as a member of the team, you should move on.

It is most unlikely that you will ever be drafted as leader of the Liberal Party, and even less likely that you will ever be prime minister.

You can't go on ignoring the facts.

You have only ever had a minimal support base and that base has been further and terminally eroded by your disloyalty, antics and shenanigans of the last year or so.

Perhaps, ironically, although I doubt that you will admit it, your best chance to be leader was when you let Downer lead the "Dream Team" that took over the leadership from me back in 1994. If not, then certainly when Downer fell over a few months later.

You didn't have the balls to seize the moment then, leaving the leadership by default to John Howard. And you haven't had the balls, or the numbers, since.

It's no use trying to argue that you had some sort of "secret" deal with Howard that he would move over for you after some "reasonable period". You know Howard was never in any position to deliver, even if he ever recognised that he had made such a "core" promise.

And all that nonsense that you went on with before the last election, claiming that (Ian) McLachlan had carried evidence of such a "deal" in his wallet for several years, is simply that, nonsense. It was just another example of your disloyalty to the party and of your willingness to destabilise in pursuit of your personal, unattainable ambition.

You also know that the party room is always the final arbiter in leadership matters, and when a position is declared vacant there is never any shortage of those prepared to pull their batons from their knapsacks.

It's also clear that you have never really worked the back bench as would be necessary to build the numbers — some say simply because of your arrogance, others put it down to you not wanting to be identified as having first-hand involvement, hoping to create the impression that your supporters were building the momentum for a draft. Either way, it was generally counterproductive and too smart by half.

Moreover, all the polling that I have ever seen or heard of — Liberal, Labor or from wherever — has had you as unelectable.

This should be enough to convince you, but if not, then you should have an honest look at yourself. You are bone-lazy. Just count your output, press releases/conferences, speeches, electoral visits, and other examples of your work ethic or "availability" compared with (say) Paul Keating when he was treasurer.

I also doubt that you have the skills, experience or self-confidence to have accepted the obvious job for you, having decided to stay on after losing the last election: namely, shadow treasurer. You'd be lost without Treasury. You may have delivered 11 budgets, but ask yourself honestly how many of them were actually yours, rather than Treasury's. I am told that Treasury is now drawing a sharp contrast between your little interest and involvement and that of Wayne Swan.

You should also recognise that your indulgent "memoirs" released recently did not provide the platform from which you had obviously hoped to be drafted. They were received with a yawn. They are most unlikely to be a best-seller. Indeed, they were already being sold at a discount in my local bookstore in just a few days.

But, most importantly, they fuelled yet another round of leadership speculation, again making the Opposition the focus of exhaustive and sustained media attention, leaving the Government to skate by without essential scrutiny. I have absolutely no doubt that you would be going ballistic if the shoe was on the other foot and you were being undermined.

Both sides of politics know from painful experience that disunity is death in politics, although, like you I'm sure, I found it a bit galling to hear Howard saying so, having been disloyal to, and sought to undermine, every leader that he ever worked for.

Despite what the Government says, the risk and opportunity of an early election later this year is very real, especially if my worst fears of the tanking of our economy through this year are confirmed.

After the damage that you have done, the best you can now do to help our chances is to leave.

John Hewson is a former leader of the Liberal Party. He fought and lost the 1993 election against Paul Keating.