Battleground: Why the Liberal Party Shirtfronted Tony Abbott
Language: English
Pages: 232
ISBN: 0522869718
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Tony Abbott came to the prime ministership lauded as the most effective leader of the opposition since Whitlam. Why then did he fail to succeed in the job to which he had aspired for decades??Frontbenchers leaked about cabinet processes to the media while backbenchers complained about the lack of access to their leader.?
Abbott's long apprenticeship in religion, journalism and political life prepared him for neither the mundane business of managing people nor the commanding heights of national leadership. Public?goodwill evaporated after a tough first budget. Inside the Liberal Party individual ambitions and a succession of poor polls fuelled increasing concern that the next election was unwinnable.
Battleground chronicles the paradox of the Abbott prime ministership: steadfast loyalty when pragmatism was required; social values at odds with community attitudes; stubbornness when tactics and strategy were essential. All would bring him undone.
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Change to Pensions’ Breaking this commitment was a genuine effort to bring medium-term structural change to the budget. The projections of the National Commission of Audit, which Abbott had promised to establish in order to review the scope of government activity, and a departmental paper on pensions commissioned by the Rudd government in 2008 showed that, despite the increasing superannuation savings of Australians, by the middle of this century eight out of ten retirees would still draw a
find other things to do. The same went for Sinodinos after he was stood down from the ministry during the Independent Commission Against Corruption Inquiry in 2014. A new verb, being ‘credlined’—that is, denied access to Abbott—started being used by MPs, staffers and journalists alike. After Abbott’s prime ministership was over, Credlin responded to claims about the extent of her power in her first public speech. ‘If you’re a cabinet minister or a journalist and you’re intimidated by the chief of
knighthood). Key was criticised for his ‘captain’s call’ but, importantly, the lack of consultation was out of character for him. Unlike Abbott, Key didn’t need advice about such basic political skills as listening to colleagues. Abbott’s decision, however, proved to be a catalyst for Liberal MPs thinking the unthinkable. By the time the announcement was made Abbott was already being talked about possibly becoming the first prime minister since James Scullin in 1931 to lose an election after a
between contrition and confidence, and produced neither. He described the 2014 budget as ‘too bold and too ambitious. We will not buy fights with the Senate that we can’t win unless we determine that they are fights we must win.’ He would improve process, too. ‘My door is open’ was his message to colleagues. ‘I will be talking to backbench committee chairs. I want to harness all of the creativity and insights that this party has to offer.’ The blame continued to be shared, though. ‘All of us have
helped him mask this unsuitability and concentrate on attacking the weaknesses of the Labor government. But once he was prime minister, as his confidence was further sapped, and his own MPs encouraged him to shape up, he couldn’t see how to lead without his chief of staff. On a human level, Abbott’s loyalty to Credlin was admirable. The evidence from Abbott’s eleventh-hour offer of Hockey’s job to Morrison, though, is that something other than loyalty governed these decisions. In winning the
