Will the gloss on Australia’s new PM endure?

By Jill Fraser

MELBOURNE, Australia

Malcolm Turnbull is the name on everyone’s lips in Australia since becoming the 29th Prime Minister, the fourth in around two years. It’s been dubbed “the Turnbull factor”.

Expectations across the board – business, climate change, conservation, the economy, asylum seekers, same-sex marriage, technology and consumer sentiment -- are high.

The question is whether Turnbull will live up to his supporters’ – mostly progressive, left of center conservatives -- hopes.

Dr. Geoff Robinson, a political historian and lecturer in History and Politics at Deakin University in Melbourne, told Anadolu Agency on Sunday that Turnbull’s style is less “patriarchal” than that of former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who Turnbull defeated in a late night coup Monday.

He warned, however, of the possible impact of the new leader’s “supreme confidence in his own ability.”

Turnbull has consistently surpassed Abbott and Opposition Leader Shorten in the popularity stakes.

He passed his first test last night when he delivered his government victory in a by-election.

The Liberals retained a Western Australian seat despite a 7 percent swing against the party. (Prior to Turnbull assuming the role of Prime Minister, polls had reflected voter dissatisfaction with Abbott and forecast a potential loss for the government.)

Turnbull is a self-made multi-millionaire, with wealth assessed at $200 million.

Raised by a single father, he won a Rhodes Scholarship and completed a law degree at Oxford University.

He worked as a political journalist in the late 1970s before embarking on flourishing careers in law and merchant banking.

He established the investment banking firm Whitlam Turnbull & Co Ltd with the backing of Australian media tycoon Kerry Packer.

Turnbull headed the Republican Movement in the lead-up to the 1999 referendum, won the Liberal leadership in 2008 and lost it to Tony Abbott in 2009 by one vote.

He assumed the role of Communications Minister when the coalition Abbott government won office in 2013.

Turnbull’s ‘small l’ liberal worldview previously drove a wedge between himself and the Coalition’s powerful right faction. (He supports same sex marriage and was -- in a previous incarnation -- a strong advocate of an emissions trading scheme as the most effective way to reduce carbon pollution.)

But in his acceptance speech after winning his party’s leadership vote following Abbott’s ouster, he cast off his libertarian image and aligned himself to the government’s current direct action policy on climate change. He also supported Abbott’s plan for a plebiscite on same-sex marriage, which he had rejected only last month.

Dr. Geoff Robinson of Deakin University told Anadolu Agency on Sunday that he believes Turnbull is strategizing to avoid estrangement from the right faction and to unite a seriously divided party.

“I wouldn’t say he’s mellowed or compromised,” Robinson said. “He’s observed what didn’t work in the past and learned from that.”

Turnbull has stressed he will establish a consultative model of government, in contrast to that under Abbott’s infamous “captain’s calls”.

Robinson describes Abbott’s style as “more patriarchal” than Turnbull’s.

The danger, however, lies in how Turnbull’s “supreme confidence in his own ability” could cause him to revert to type under pressure and to forgo his consultative model, according to the historian.

Turnbull’s perceived enormous self-belief and eloquence has already ruffled feathers in the Opposition benches.

On Friday, Labor deputy leader Tanya Plibersek accused Turnbull of “mansplaining” – or providing a patronizing explanation assuming a woman listener’s ignorance of the subject matter -- instead of answering her question about foreign aid.

Robinson compares Turnbull to the UK’s David Cameron and New Zealand’s John Key, “an economic and social moderate and on the left of the conservative spectrum.”

Describing Turnbull as “a natural lover of foreign policy” Robinson believes the new leader will want to play a role in shaping Australia’s image and determining the country’s place in the world.

“Abbott was emotionally committed to the conservative Anglosphere argument; that Australia still has a strong relationship with the United Kingdom and the United States in terms of a shared Anglo-Saxon culture and identity,” he said.

“I don’t think Malcolm Turnbull feels emotionally engaged with this position.”