Scott Morrison’s attack on Malcolm Turnbull’s truth-telling turns into a full-blown shambles

Of all the choices Scott Morrison could take, the decision to sink the boot into Malcolm Turnbull for telling the truth was not the wisest.

A few facts:

Morrison, the new Prime Minister, chose to send Malcolm Turnbull, the leader he replaced, to a conference in Indonesia because he couldn’t go himself, and he wanted “to ensure that we had very senior-level representation.”

In fact, Morrison could hardly attend, having just announced, apropos of nothing but panic at the byelection in Turnbull’s former seat of Wentworth, that he was thinking about moving Australia’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Anyone who thought about it for more than a second knew such a thought-bubble was guaranteed to inflame relations with Australia’s nearest large neighbour. Indonesia is the most populous Muslim-majority nation in the world.

Meanwhile, Morrison’s ham-fisted attempt to win over Jewish voters in Wentworth turned out to be worthless: the conservatives lost the seat for the first time in 117 years.

In sending Turnbull to Indonesia for talks with the Indonesian President, Joko Widodo, did Morrison imagine the subjects of Jerusalem and trade wouldn’t get a solid workout?

Read the article by Tony Wright in The Sydney Morning Herald.