In case Labor leader Bill Shorten had forgotten the cool, logical ruthlessness of his political opponent Malcolm Turnbull, he was given a sharp, painful reminder in a pivotal parliamentary exchange that gives Labor a glimpse of the hot hell that awaits it in the lead up to the next election.
Turnbull – the man who famously humiliated the British government as a young lawyer before he'd even conceived of starting his own bank or making a fortune out of something called the internet – quite simply wiped the floor with Labor.
There was no thundering refutations or excessive flourishes of oratory from Turnbull. Instead it was calm, reasoned and apparently honest response from Turnbull who had clearly put more thought to the questions of transparency and conflict of interest than Labor, which showed its own transparency in an altogether unflattering light.
Within the space of an hour, Turnbull called out Shorten as a cowardly leader by delegating the dirty work of smear politics to his subordinates, his shadow assistant treasurer and former university economist Andrew Leigh as a man who'd compromised his convictions in the name of politics, and Labor as a party uncomfortable with the concept of private enterprise.
Read more: http://www.afr.com/news/politics/shorten-flails-as-turnbull-nails-the-politics-of-envy-20151015-gk9n...
"If the honourable member (Mr Burke) wants to go round wearing a sandwich board saying `Malcolm Turnbull's got a lot of money' feel free - I think people know that I've got a lot of money," he said.
