Canny or blindly reactionary? Crazy brave or plain stupid? That’s the question about Tony Abbott and his front bench.
Are we missing something or is this bloke as politically clumsy as he seems to be?
It’s not that several people aren’t buying it. Some commentators insist that Abbott’s “straight-talking” is a refreshing change, and after two years of Ruddspeak I understand where they’re coming from. Yet I can’t see any evidence of “straight talking” from Abbott on climate change, an issue that may make or break his leadership. He seems to say something different depending on whether he is talking to Alan Jones — where the planet is cooling and Copenhagen is like Munich — or the ABC, where he declares he believes in climate change and the issue is what to do about it.
Looks a lot like the “weather-vane” Abbott termed himself, not some straight-shooting anti-politician.
And he has defended his Night at the Museum frontbench line-up by saying they’re experienced and aggressive and it was time for the coalition to start being oppositional, not a government-in-exile.
Funny way to show you’re not a government-in-exile, by promoting a bunch of former government ministers, but that’s mere detail.
What no one has pointed out is that, far from being the tactical brains behind nearly 12 years of Howard rule, the dinosaurs promoted by Abbott were duds. Philip Ruddock managed to make the government synonymous with lying, the incarceration of children, the demonisation of asylum seekers and, after it was punted from immigration, the debacle that became the David Hicks case. Kevin Andrews screwed up Workchoices (admittedly a howling, flea-bitten dog of a policy anyway) and then, when sacked from that, presided over the Haneef outrage at immigration. Bronwyn Bishop’s brief, and yet far too long, time in ministerial office will forever be associated with kerosene baths and, as Andrew Podger’s recent book showed, a difficulty working with either officials or colleagues.
Not to mention Eric Abetz, whose place in Australian political history is secure courtesy of his gulling by Godwin Grech.
Duds, the lot of them, and yet supposedly these are the types who will provide a killer instinct.
There’s also some convenient rewriting of history going on. I don’t recall Malcolm Turnbull shying away from being oppositional enough. In fact earlier this year the primary complaint was that he never said anything positive about anything. He was, after all, the bloke who proudly declared he’d be voting against the second stimulus package, and suffered in the polls for it.
Not much in the way of “government-in-exile” politics there.
Abbott has got his strategy backwards. There’s 11 months, tops, before an election. Now is the time to start selling your policies, not the time to be ramping up the negativity. And yet Abbott has deliberately picked a bunch of divisive, incompetent faces of yesteryear to go out and ceaselessly carp about a popular Prime Minister and his government.
And he’s appointed an ignorant, Sinophobic economic irrationalist as finance shadow, a decision that speaks volumes about his judgement.
Meantime, the cause of generational renewal on the Liberal frontbench has been seriously set back. Talent such as Jamie Briggs and the high-quality newcomers Paul Fletcher and Kelly O’Dwyer should have at least been blooded with parliamentary secretaryships.
I can’t see this working but there are plenty, especially in the right-wing media, who seem to think it’s a clever strategy.
Funny, though, because I’ve thought for two years now that the Opposition needed to take the focus off itself and issues that hurt it — like climate change and industrial relations — and onto the government’s weak spots, if it could. It needed the media to stop talking about it and start talking about Kevin Rudd.
And along comes Tony Abbott with a frontbench that will keep attention focused on the coalition and a strategy to fight the next election on climate change and another round of IR reform.
Plainly, I’m missing something.
Yes you are missing something!
You and me both Bernard
I take Abbott seriously only he keeps presenting like Tas Devil from Hanna Barbera cartoons, all gruff and snarl and whirly girdy. Perhaps he should be led out into the carpark and just left to his own devices.
And then wait till David Oldfield cuts loose about the inner sanctum with Tony. That will cement him about as far away from the Dalai Llama as Hu Jintao.
Good grief. As if the ETS was not bad enough. Bring on the science of The Greens. Nick Xenophon are you possibly, just possibly reading this? Senator Judith Troeth, Senator Sue Boyce. God have mercy.
What you’re missing if anything, is the sheer craven nostalgia within elements of the coalition for a return to the Howard era populism in which the electorate were basically treated as though they had all left school at age 14, got their news and opinions from the front page of the daily telegraph and alan Jones, and disliked anyone who didnt accord with the Australian norm circa 1950.
Abbots role call of the political living dead is really about acknowledging who in the party can deliver the populist goods. It takes a very particular type of political animal to exploit peoples ignorance and fears. Bishop, Andrews, Ruddock et al have all shown that they’re happily without the moral dimension that would stop others from stooping this low.
The poor old battler, rebranded courtesy of a salivating poisonous dwarf (glen milne) as “abbots army’ are about to get another good going over by this charlatan faction, all of whom, not having a coherent policy bone in their body, have spent the last 2 years reminiscing about the little master Howard and his legendary wedge, dog whistle, capacity to talk out of the side of his mouth, and limitless capacity to never expect anything out of people but the worst. The political dividends were huge.
Admittedly Howard had a little more in his political arsenal and always did a good job of avoiding looking like the weird mix of political opportunist and zealot that he was, Abbot clearly thinks that he can affect a Howardesque pose of ‘average joe’, ‘straight talker’ , battlers friend and he’s probably banking on huge backing from the radio shock jocks and the Murdoch press – which he’ll get in spades.
The danger is, as Guy Rundle has said, he’s basically pretty bent. He’s picked a front bench in his own image. Its cringeworthy, but so is Alan Jones, and he’s number one in the ratings.
Bravo Bernard!!
That’s a damn fine rant and pretty well sums up the useless bunch of sods that are trying to pass themselves off as the “opposition”.
At least there’s less than a year to go before the electorate will pass judgement and lop off quite a few heads.
Unfortunately, it also means putting up with Tony and Barnaby et al, endlessly spouting their tiresome populist mantras.
I dread the pandemic of ear-bleeding that awaits us all, as………
Programatic specificity, meets, Huge new Government tax.