Back on Monday, September 7, The Canberra Times published an article by me titled ''Parties pay when MPs indulge personal wishes''.
The gist of the article was that almost every by-election these days is caused by the greed-driven resignation of the member. Consequently the expected swing is not against the government of the day (the traditional belief) but, rather, is against the party holding the seat.
I drew attention to the fact that this parliamentary term has so far seen three greed-driven resignations, creating by-elections last year in Lyne (NSW), Gippsland (Victoria) and Mayo (SA).
Lyne was lost by the Nationals and Gippsland retained. Mayo was held by the Liberal Party.
Then I wrote: ''The forthcoming federal by-election for Bradfield, expected in November, will be the first this year and the fourth for this term. Like the other three it will be caused by a greed-driven resignation.''
To be candid I had not expected to be proved right so quickly. I had thought Brendan Nelson would wait until the by-election was over before announcing his new post-parliament job.
But now we know and the electors of Bradfield will know when they vote.
In that circumstance the best thing I can do is attack Nelson.
Readers should not be allowed to suppose that this by-election is caused by some normal retirement, the word Nelson wants to be used.
It is caused by a greed-driven resignation.
The single most sickening aspect of it is that, just two days before the ambassadorial announcement was made, Nelson gave a strong speech to the Liberals' party room saying that the remaining members should learn to stand for something.
Here is the man who lectured his colleagues about how they should stand for something. I speculate below what that something was intended to mean but, in the meantime, I remind readers of this man's past.
That Nelson changed from Labor-voting to Liberal-voting is not the point.
During the great Labor split of the 1950s there were many such people. The Labor Party changed and drove them out. Even today, with the Liberal Party at its nadir, there are such people. For example, the New South Wales state Liberal member for Epping, Greg Smith, certainly stands for something, notwithstanding that he has switched from Labor to Liberal. His was the switch of conviction.
But let us remember this about Nelson. During the period when John Hewson led the Liberals he shouted out at a rally: ''I have never voted Liberal in my life.'' Then, two years later, with Bradfield in his sights, he admitted that was a lie. He had actually voted Liberal twice. He even named the elections at which he had secretly voted Liberal.
At the 2007 election John Howard promised that a re-elected Coalition government would establish the world's most comprehensive emissions trading scheme in Australia, commencing no later than 2012. No candidate for either Coalition party dissented from that.
Now that they are in Opposition, Nelson lectures his colleagues that they should stand for something. That is universally interpreted to mean they should block Labor's ETS in the Senate.
Very soon after he lectured his colleagues along those lines he accepted an ambassadorial post in Brussels where part of his job will be to promote Kevin Rudd's ETS to which Nelson is alleged to be strongly opposed.
Malcolm Turnbull does not want the Liberal Party to block Labor's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.
Let us remember that Nelson's attitude towards Turnbull is born of malice. Therefore, that Turnbull wants the Liberal Party to take one course leads Nelson to urge the opposite course. For him, those who remain should stand for something and lose their seats. He wants that because, if enough of them lose their seats, the remaining Liberals will dump Turnbull as leader.
I suppose the one thing that can be said for Nelson is that Bradfield's blue ribbon is so blue it is very unlikely the Liberal candidate will lose.
Nevertheless, it is going to cost the party half a million dollars and the result is unlikely to be seen as good for Turnbull.
The question is: how bad will this be for Turnbull?
In my article cited above I wrote that the contest would be between Liberal and the Greens and I went on: ''I predict the division of the two-party preferred vote will be 59 to 41.''
In 2007 the contest in Bradfield was between Liberal and Labor and the division was 63 to 37. The by-election in Mayo, won by the Liberal Party is a comparable case.
In Mayo the two-party preferred result in 2007 was 51,264 votes for Alexander Downer (57.06per cent) and 38,584 (42.94per cent) for the Labor candidate, Mary Brewerton.
At the September 2008 by-election there was no Labor candidate so the contest was between the Liberal candidate, Jamie Briggs, and the Greens candidate, Lynton Vonow.
The two-party preferred vote was 39,381 votes for Briggs (53.03per cent) and 34,879 for Vonow (46.97per cent). So there was a swing against the Liberal Party of 4per cent.
When the Liberal Party has a poor win in Bradfield no doubt its spin doctors will sell the idea that the result is really quite good for Turnbull.
In that I shall agree with them. However, I shall also be able to say out loud something they dare not say themselves, namely that Nelson should be ashamed of himself.
Many Liberals will privately agree.
Meanwhile, when he first announced his intended resignation on August 25 he did several interviews. In one of those it was put to him that he had failed as Liberal leader as shown by his woeful opinion polls.
He answered that his record as leader at by-elections was very good and said that the Gippsland contest produced a very positive swing.
Certainly Gippsland was a very good result for the Nationals.
It was, however, a poor result for the Liberal candidate.
Nelson did not mention Mayo and the interviewer did not think to ask him about that.
I think readers, however, will agree with me that the Mayo result was dreadful for the Liberal Party and for its then leader, Nelson.
Here was Nelson, a man who was a failed leader. However, he sure knows how to pursue his own personal interests.
Malcolm Mackerras is a visiting fellow at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of NSW at the Australian Defence Force Academy.