It’s pretty disheartening that Tony Abbott — the man who could be just one slippery Port Macquarie step away from being Prime Minister — is the most appalling person of 2010. But that’s politics in the new paradigm for you. Looking from the outside, Abbott didn’t have such a bad year. He took the Coalition from a pretty dire position to within a whiff of snatching victory and he put enough pressure on a flagging first-term government that a Prime Minister was dumped by his own party — just two months out from an election.
But then there’s the other side of big Tone. In Opposition, the Speedo-wearing, gospel truth-spouting, s-x-before-marriage-opposing ironman seemed intent on destroying policy purely for the sake of it. And, in an election campaign dominated by small-target strategy policies and focus group-driven slogans, he displayed such a dazzling array of stunts the electorate knew more of what he stood against than what he stood for. In the 2010 race for bottom — which featured a decent-sized field it must be said — Tony Abbott was first.
I suspect that Abbott won the Golden Arsehat not for consistent arsehattery over the whole year, but by a last minute dash for the line over asylum seekers.
He could only wait two days before making the recent Christmas Island tragedy a partisan matter, but was immediately outed by Andrew Wilkie for being two-faced over our refugee intake, and had the rug pulled from under him by the Wikileaks revelation that the Libs are all secretly hoping for more boat arrivals.
remember, don’t believe a word he says unless you get it in writing
The survey has nailed it correctly.
The lack of leadership by both parties on asylum seekers mirrors the political vacuum in which Australia currently exists.
The pathetic Rodent rode the asylum seekers question into the ground, and took Beazley etc with him. After Tampa, politics in Oz changed for good.
The Libs & Labor make me ashamed to call myself an Aussie.
And to think it was the once widely maligned Malcolm Fraser who was the last PM who took a principled stand on asylum seekers…nice one Malcolm…you turned out to be a true humanitarian & a politically brave politician.
What a narrow field and obviously from a narrow -minded field of commentators.
Where is that Oakshot fellow , for example!
Predictable output from the sheep that subscribe to Crikey. Four legs gooood! Two legs baaaaaad! Four legs gooood! Two legs baaaaaad! Four legs gooood! Two legs baaaaaad! Four legs gooood! Two legs baaaaaad!