It's now approximately 18 months since Tony Abbott's election as Liberal leader, and the federal parliamentary Press Gallery is still grappling with the idea of Abbott as a successful Opposition Leader.
Try as they might, they can't account for his remarkable performance in the role thus far.
The hostile reception that Abbott's Budget reply received in many sections of the media is a case in point. Journalists lined up to ridicule Abbott's speech as a ''policy-free zone'' that failed the test of an alternative prime minister. They noted, derisively, that he only announced one new policy idea -- to tackle business red tape -- and didn't attempt to list the coalition's alternative budget savings.
The ABC's Barrie Cassidy was among the fiercest critics. Surveying the performance of opposition leaders past and present, the one-time Labor staffer classified Abbott as a member of the ''long list of low achievers'' based on his response to Wayne Swan's fourth budget. Cassidy castigated Abbott's response as ''populist, contradictory, rhetorical and shallow'' and singled out his defence of middle-class welfare for special attention, describing its use as a tool for ''vote-buying'' that deserved to be cut.
In one sense, Cassidy is right. Australia's family payments system is overly generous and has been used masterfully in the past for political reasons. This, along with Abbott's continued embrace of his Rolls-Royce paid parental leave scheme -- which would necessitate an increase in company tax -- continues to give many small-government Liberals major heartburn.
But middle-class welfare is criticised in economic circles mostly because of its inefficiency and the absurdity of taxing income earners only to hand much of it back to them -- after some bureaucratic churn -- in the form of family benefits. And the government's budget made no attempt to tackle this. If the government was committed to reforming Australia's tax and transfer system, it would have coupled benefit reductions with tax cuts. Instead, in its quest for more revenue, it only did the former.
In this light, and especially considering the government's upcoming carbon tax, it was hardly surprising that Abbott went for a populist attack.
And why bother laying out detailed policy proposals at least two years out from an election? Previous opposition leaders have hardly been rewarded for doing so. Brendan Nelson copped it from all sides for his five cents-a-litre petrol tax cut, and Malcolm Turnbull's plan to increase cigarette taxes only earned him internal party criticism.
Instead, Abbott sensibly used his 30-minute, uninterrupted, nationally televised address to empathise with Australians who feel like they are doing it tough financially. It was classic Abbott -- well scripted, confidently delivered, laced with humour and audacious claims to Labor's fracturing working-class base. But virtually no commentator could appreciate Abbott's performance for its political smarts.
Some may still be ruing their failure to anticipate Abbott's rise.
Take Peter Hartcher, the Sydney Morning Herald's political editor. After Abbott's election as leader, Hartcher derided him as the ''least electable'' of all possible leadership contenders. Last week, marvelling at the political depths being plumbed by the Gillard government, Hartcher gave Abbott little credit. Instead, we are told, the government's problems stem from one man: not Abbott, but media mogul Rupert Murdoch. According to Hartcher, the Murdoch tabloids have ''declared jihad'' on the government, and Gillard and her ministers are terrified of them.
This is an all-too familiar tune. Other Fairfax scribes like the Financial Review's Laura Tingle have banged this drum before.
Tingle has written that the Gillard government had a tough time with the media because the Murdoch-owned News Limited papers were disappointed with the election result.
Likewise, Crikey's Bernard Keane -- who predicted that an Abbott leadership would reduce the Liberal party to a ''reactionary rump'' -- said one of the government's biggest problems was the ''sheer partisanship'' of News Limited papers.
This criticism completely overlooks and disregards Abbott's central role in causing Julia Gillard's political headaches, and is part of a long line of efforts by some members of the Press Gallery to diminish his achievements.
The Age's Michelle Grattan, who wrote in late 2009 that the Liberal party's decision to oppose the emissions trading scheme was ''ill-judged', argued last weekend that Abbott had been ''dealt a favourable hand'' by coming into the Liberal leadership as ''Rudd was weakening'.
Huh? When Tony Abbott was elected Liberal leader in December 2009, commentators such as Grattan predicted Armageddon for the coalition. Voters' satisfaction with Kevin Rudd's leadership was then measured at 58 per cent, compared with 32 per cent who were dissatisfied -- numbers Julia Gillard can only dream of. It was only later, in April 2010 when Rudd abandoned the ETS, that voters began to desert him. And though few in the Press Gallery are keen to give Abbott his due, it was his ferocious campaigning against the policy that forced the ALP's hand. Far from being lucky to be elected Liberal leader, Abbott made his own luck.
Not done disparaging Abbott's success as leader as at least partly due to fortune, Grattan then went on to suggest that electing Malcolm Turnbull as Liberal leader today would help the coalition to ''pick up some Labor voters''. As it happens, we have a great natural experiment to test whether Grattan is right: Turnbull's disastrous period as Liberal leader. Recall that the coalition's primary vote fell as low as 34 per cent and its two party preferred to just 41 per cent. Against this, we have not only Abbott's long string of polling successes -- putting the Liberal party ahead of Labor in two-party preferred terms time and time again -- but also last year's election result, where Abbott generated a swing to the coalition and delivered it more seats than Labor.
Grattan isn't the only journalist to have mused about the prospects of leadership change for the Liberals at the peak of their political performance. Laurie Oakes, long serving doyen of the Press Gallery by acclamation -- who predicted Abbott as leader would be ''electoral poison'' -- kicked off speculation earlier this year with a column before parliament resumed in February.
In the Daily Telegraph, Oakes erected a false hurdle for the Liberal leader. ''Abbott's colleagues will be watching the first Newspoll of the year with interest,'' he intoned, ominously, and backed it up with a quote from an anonymous Liberal MP who said questions ''would be asked'' if the Coalition was not leading the ALP in the first poll of the year. Obviously, that poll and all subsequent polls have been strong, and no moves to replace Abbott have arisen.
If there was any remaining doubt about Abbott's political strategy, it should have been erased by a series of devastating poll results this week. In short succession, Galaxy, Nielsen and Newspoll delivered more and more bad news about the Budget and for the government. In the ultimate justification of Abbott's approach, Labor and Gillard now languish on record low two-party preferred, primary and personal approval measures.
It's almost as if these journalists, having being shown up by Abbott's rise and success as Liberal leader, can't bear to give him his credit for his performance so far.
Australian politics is not rocket science. Voters expect their governments to be stable and predictable. That's why Julia Gillard's public assassination of Kevin Rudd as prime minister shocked many voters. Australians don't like increasing taxes, nor do they reward politicians who break heartfelt promises. That's one reason the proposed carbon tax is wreaking such havoc on Labor's primary vote. Another reason is that many voters are unconvinced that Australia donning a hairshirt will do much to combat the threat of global warming. And most Australians expect the government to demonstrate it is in complete control of its immigration system. Small wonder that the continued people-smuggling crisis is also weighing down Gillard and her team.
If one can grasp these simple truths, it shouldn't be hard to account for Abbott's success. And perhaps that's just the problem. Journalists, particularly those who reside in the nation's capital and who socialise only with the like-minded, don't always grasp these facts. That may explain why they cheered on ''climate action'' in the face of growing public disquiet, and why many sneer at measures that seek to control our borders. And maybe that's why the explanation for Tony Abbott's success as Liberal leader continues to elude them.
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