On Monday we reported some of Tony Abbott’s rumoured post-Parliament job offers, but today we hear from a well-connected tipster that the former PM has no intention of going anywhere.
Says our informant: “Latest I hear is that Abbott wants to stay in Parliament waiting for the right to call him back [to the leadership]. Delusional.”
The tip-off lines up neatly with Eric Abetz’s latest desperate cri de coeur, published in the Burnie Advocate last night.
Dubbing himself the “informal leader of the conservatives in the Liberal Party,” the dumped leader of the Senate urges Tony Abbott to stay on in Parliament to provide focus and support to the party’s hard right wingers, “who see him as being an opinion and thought leader”.
Abbott and his supporters are obviously using the Rudd return as their model, hoping they can do one better than Kev and come back and win the election. Great plan, save for one inconvenient fact: Rudd never lost the support of the people, merely of the factions.
Abbott, meanwhile, was never liked by the public, barely tolerated by his party, and loathed by large sections of both after the 2014 budget. Turnbull was brought in largely to solve problems of popularity, not of administration and government — though there were those, too. As a politician, Abbott has less shelf life than a ham roll at Aussie’s cafe.
But it sounds to us like Abetz and others are having trouble letting go. Do we hear the rumbles of a campaign to bring Tony back? Watch this space.
Would that be the Libs version of the Zombie Apocalypse ?
Shortens luck might be about to change.. Abbott the destroyer of governments and prime ministers staying on.. and a GST election fought by Turnbull who has been an abysmal campaigner in the past..his republican shambles where he managed to alienate his own side springs to mind..Supamal has been under no pressure so far..it will be interesting to see how he responds..
Besides popularity Rudd had another advantage ie: the public never understood why he was shafted. The ALP Caucus, despite its faults, kept the lid on the fact that many MPs & ministers were disgruntled with Rudd’s management as PM. Their dissatisfaction was kept in-house therefore the public was not privy to Rudd’s shortcomings.
But with Abbott it was quite different. His faults were on display daily, he became an embarrassment, a laughing stock & figure of derision – all his own work, nobody else to blame. The voters understood why he needed to be removed…and were relieved.
Abbott to the Liberal Party: “give me the leadership or I’ll wreck the joint”.
I think that not all his failings were on display. I understand that he may have allowed alcohol to interfere with his obligatory attendance in Parliament on occasion. His glowing character reference for a pedophile friend of his seminary days and his close association with Cardinal Pell were rarely mentioned. His irrational support of Bronwyn Bishop as opposed to his vicious character assassination of Peter Slipper received little attention in the media and how and when he received the financial backing to have Pauline Hanson imprisoned has never been closely examined. He was given a very easy ride by the media.