Turnbull's political philosophy

We should not forget that this concern for a high-wage, social welfare economy as a key priority (not just a consequential benefit to help fund a social 'safety net') is anathema to traditional Liberal thinking, but Turnbull has a confession, suggesting an epithany of sorts.

…. the truth is I have been extraordinarily lucky. I have had to struggle … I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth …. But, you know, the reality is that even if you're born with brains … with a higher-than-average intelligence, that is as - in a sense, as undeserved as somebody who inherits a billion dollars.

He relates an anecdote from his time as partner with US merchant banker Goldman Sachs, where

everyone was earning very big money, the chairman, the chief executive … said, you know, "We're doing well. We're making lots of money 'cause we work hard and we deserve it." And I said to him afterwards, just quietly, I said, "You know, there are taxi drivers in this city that work much longer hours than anyone does here and they don'tearn very much at all." So, the truth is, we don't really deserve our good fortune.

The importance of this is blurred by the fact that Turnbull, like many highly successful businessmen, has a strong personal commitment to charity and philanthropy. But this supports his sense that social justice is a key political value - it does not substitute for it, as it does for those Liberals who cite conservative principles to ignore reforms required by humanity and fairness.

He is in good company, both in the old world and the new. Lloyd George, the Welsh lad who, from a family of modest means, became Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of a wartime coalition, was one of the truly great British Prime Ministers, and a mentor to Winston Churchill. He helped found the 'new' Liberal Party to better counter the self-serving conservatism of Tories, who he called 'the Dukes', and proceeded to lay the foundations of the modern welfare state. He saw intuitively what conservative liberals are loath to - that if freedom is a prime value its benefits must be open to all, not just those with wealth, talent, social status or political influence.

Likewise Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, now a household name in US politics. In a polarised political world she defends the same inclusive logic: if the freedom to choose one's path in life is important, then a government which respects citizens has a duty to minimise the role of unchosen factors, such as poverty, disability, unemployment and bad health, which deprive so many of the opportunity to share it.

Warren, who has a gift for putting philosophical ideas in simple and forceful language, challenges the same right-wing arguments of moral desert. In responding to a charge that asking the rich to pay more taxes was inciting 'class warfare,'

There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. ... You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

One feels Turnbull, if pressed, would agree and that this must, sooner or later, raise a more fundamental question: if the ability to accumulate wealth depends on everyone else doing what they can, on what grounds can we justify ignoring those who, through no fault of their own, can do little or nothing? On what basis can we say they are less worthy, or their needs are less relevant? Robert Manne, in a thoughtful essay in the April 2012 Monthly, comments,

According to my trope of Turnbull as the last true Deakinite Liberal, in them only one great theme is conspicuously missing - social policy. Turnbull strongly supports the Productivity Commission -endorsed disability insurance scheme. Yet, perhaps because he is an economic liberal and not a social democrat, he has not put his mind to other potentially very costly but also vital extensions of the Australian welfare state: the scandalous neglect of the mentally ill and their families, for example, or the dental health of those very many Australians of limited financial means.

But Turnbull will write his own script, and is more likely to address such needs than doctrinaire colleagues who see these issues through an ideological lens. And if it is true - as suggested above - that a political theory is an attempt to give coherence to an interpretation of shared values, it is also relevant that his actions suggest an intuitive sense that this must be an ongoing exercise, calling for reflection, imagination, empirical evidence and public debate; an ideology, by contrast, is an interpretation of ideals set in concrete, defined by past opinions which still hold sway.

This is the conservatism Turnbull challenges when he calls for imaginative thinking and judging issues on their merits. It means going back to first principles to reassess yesterday's opinions, including those held by Abbott and Howard and Hockey and Abetz on issues such as climate change, same-sex marriage, republicanism, the economy, a fair tax system, foreign policy, national health, education, violence against women and many others.

Turnbull is not a saint. He is, in fact, an easy target for obvious reasons, not excluding his current celebrity. Annabell Crabb's 2009 Quarterly Essay is full of insights into his personality and character, not all endearing. One might say the same of Churchill, Lloyd George, Whitlam, Keating and other leaders who have done great things. What counts, however, are his ideas and his sense of values, and what they might mean for the quality of political debate - and ultimately the quality of life - in Australia and perhaps beyond.

This is very early days, and we are reminded daily that Turnbull has a fractious and still unreliable power base, that he has had to accept Abbott legacy policies he would rather not and that exceptional ability, confidence and vision are no substitute for party numbers. But good journalists - at least those not easily seduced by a fashion for scepticism, who think values mean something - will also focus on his ideas, and contribute to the debates they give rise to.