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[Jimmy]

At least the dude came back to Australia to face the music.

[martinuzz]

How's his diplomatic status btw? As a cardinal, he most likely has diplomatic immunity, unless the Pope revokes that.

[Reelya]

Being a high-ranking member of the church doesn't give you diplomatic immunity, that's actually related to the Vatican's status as a sovereign nation, so it comes down to standard international law - e.g. if one of Australia's own citizens is appointed as an official in another nation, does that give the citizen automatic diplomatic immunity to Australia's laws?

e.g. two main cases I found were (1) a Vatican Embassy official in Washington was charged with possessing child porn, but they evacuated him back to the Vatican, and since the Vatican never signed any extradition treaties, there was no way to force him to stand charges, and (2) Cardinal Law in the USA was accused of covering up child abuse, but was then withdrawn to Rome where he was appointed to a mostly ceremonial title. In both these cases, the main defense tactic was to exploit the lack of an extradition treaty to protect the priests involved. Which is a type of immunity, but not quite the same thing as a formal diplomatic immunity treaty.

[Reelya]

At least the dude came back to Australia to face the music.

My jury service was in Melbourne, August 15th. Can't really say any more, but just sayin' :/

~~~

BTW looks like Liberals could implode by the next election. PM Malcolm Turnbull is facing potential leadership challenges from the conservative wing of the party, and has had to backtrack on things like global warming emissions reductions.

The main guy being mentioned as potential challenger is Peter Dutton who comes from Queensland, he's a conservative "tough on immigrants" type, but polling suggests his own seat and about 10 of his QLD party colleagues face electoral defeat at the next election.

So, the growing possibility is that the conservative wing get behind Peter Dutton to rebrand the party as hardcore anti-immigrant, global warming denier, conservative, thinking this will win back the votes they're losing to the Labor Party in their conservative heartland. But ... it sounds more like a last-ditch, sinking ship effort to save their own careers. Dutton isn't going to be a popular leader.

[wobbly]

As far as I can tell most of the conservative hard liners care more about taking down Malcom Turnbull then replacing him with anything. He's in a screwed up position at the moment. He can choose between having his energy policy knocked down by conservatives or by everyone else. Neither looks good for him.

[smjjames]

With anything? Here’s hoping you don’t end up with your equivalent of Trump.

[Reelya]

The one upside is that in a parliamentary system you're not stuck with a Prime Minister for 4 years at a time. Remember, they got rid of Abbott before through the same mechanism under which Turnbull's leadership is in jeopardy. Trump would have had to win the equivalent of a congressional seat first, then win support from 51% of congress to be the leader in Australia. Then, he could be booted out even a week later if he turns out to be terrible.

EDIT: Note the the opposition Labor Party picked up 14 seats in 2016, with the conservative Liberal Party only retaining rule by 1 seat. The Labor Party has has the same leader for 4 years, whereas if the Liberals change their leader again, they will be on their third Prime Minister since 2015. They're only barely clawing onto power and the repeated backstabbing of leaders who each push very different agendas just looks really bad for stability.

EDIT2: It turns out the rumors were true, despite Dutton denying a leadership challenge. The challenge went ahead, but Turnbull managed to retain power, with Dutton failing to secure enough votes to install himself as party leader / PM.

[smjjames]

True on not being stuck with it for four years, plus Parliamentary systems tend to not put the extremes up as Prime Ministers. Though it's a general tendency, if the climate is extreme, then the PM could tend to be in the 'centrist' of that extreme.

[wobbly]

We have our extremists. Perhaps not by American standards but Abbott is still hardcore climate change denial and openly expresses an opinion that western Christians are superior to everyone else. The right gets noticeably crazier here when the American right goes nuts. American political retric is fairly distinct, you can tell when something has spread from America.

And yeah Turnbull survives but I doubt he'll last long now. Maybe to the next election. Maybe not.

[Reelya]

news.com.au has a live news feed about mass resignations in the wake of the failed leadership challenge.
https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/peter-dutton-has-refused-to-rule-out-another-bid-for-the-prime-ministership/news-story/8f225cec3d2dcc45d6743991bf05afdf

So far, four ministers (other than Dutton) have signalled that they might quit, because as one said the Liberal Party has gone "too far to the left" under Turnbull.

Meanwhile, some other members of the Liberal Party have said Dutton is too far to the right and that if he becomes the PM they'll join the crossbench - i.e. refuse to vote with their own party. Since the Liberals only have a one-seat majority, those people will be able to block him from acting as PM, even though he's the representative of the majority party.

The "left/right" thing in the Liberal Party isn't really a left/right thing - it's a divide between urban cosmopolitan types represented by Turnbull - social-liberal/economic-conservatives - and rural+religious conservatives on the other side.

It's noted here that this opens the possibility of a third candidate coming through, someone who hasn't been tarnished by the whole leadership fracas, and would be acceptable to both party factions who are current at each other's throats.

[Loud Whispers]

They might be able to find someone unacceptable to both sides

[smjjames]

Short of a straight up homosexual nazi (combining things that would be unacceptable to one of the sides), I'm not sure what would qualify. Besides, wouldn't they just refuse to vote for such a PM candidate who is unacceptable to their side?

[Reelya]

It seems the guy who's trying to become PM has a potential scandal waiting in the wings:

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/dutton-childcare-company-received-5-6-million-in-public-money-20180822-p4zyy6.html

A childcare company operated for Peter Dutton's family trust received more than $5.6 million in public Commonwealth funding, placing the Liberal leadership contender in danger of being ineligible to remain in Parliament.

Education Department figures, released under Freedom of Information laws and obtained by Fairfax Media, show the Camelia Avenue Childcare Centre in Brisbane - operated by the company owned by Mr Dutton's wife Kirilly - received $2.03 million in Commonwealth funding between 2014 and 2018.

The same company, RHT Investments (QLD) Pty Ltd, operates another childcare centre in Bald Hill, Brisbane, which received $3.6 million between 2010 and 2018.

RHT Investments is owned by the RHT Family Trust, of which Mr Dutton and his family are beneficiaries.

When Labor pursued the matter in question time on Wednesday, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull revealed the government had not sought the advice of the Solicitor-General as to whether Mr Dutton was in breach of section 44 of the constitution.

That provision says any person who "has any direct or indirect pecuniary interest in any agreement with the Public Service of the Commonwealth", is ineligible to remain in Parliament.

So much for the paragons of the free market and small government.

[Yoink]

So Turnbull is officially out now?
I noticed a marked increase in the frequency and severity of "who is the PM" memes and decided to google it, heh.

Shoulda just stuck with Tony in the first place. Not his fault his weird-looking head let political cartoonists (as well as just about anyone who could clutch a crayon in their fist) have a field day while he was in.   

[wobbly]

It's not official yet, but by tomorrow.... Watching a bunch of arch-conservatives suicide there own party. Pretty delicious. They seem to have forgotten why they replaced the last one with someone more moderate.