Illustration: Rod Clement
It's been three weeks since the federal parliamentary Liberal Party enacted Tony Abbott's dramatic change of professional fortune, and on Monday he was back in the House of Representatives chamber to lend his ignominy visual effect, his rock-hard derriere parked on the ice-cold leather of the backbenches for the first time since the world welcomed Windows 95 and the Australian Grand Prix left Adelaide (unlike many people, alive).
In the interim, the former PM has had plenty of time back in Sydney to lovingly watch – in person but mainly on TV (radio "sniping" duties called) – his long-suffering wife Margie pack and shift boxes of their possessions, and to mourn with friends and supporters.
But to mourn what, precisely? The extinction of an Australia made in his image (we're talking narrow ideology, by the way, not bad couture)?
We've spoken with a few of Abbott's recent commiserators, and they concede that our 28th prime minister has been particularly preoccupied with the fact that his salary has been brutally slashed from $539,338 to just short of $200k, and how much more onerous that makes the mortgage payments on his Forestville home.
Tony Abbott in Question Time on Monday. Andrew MearesSound familiar? When John Howard's government was turfed out by Kevin Rudd in 2007, Abbott wasted little time making informal approaches to Labor powerbrokers, seeking a special allowa....
And then in June this year, he confessed that "over the years, [I'm someone who has] felt a bit of mortgage stress."
It's funny, really, that Abbott has so often been portrayed as a radical right-wing pugilist when he's actually been a politician of incredibly mundane absorptions. Little wonder though, that he was such a devastating campaigner (in opposition) on cost-of-living pressures. He could feel them himself!
Mind you, the Abbotts bought the Forestville house way back in 1994 (around the time the Mad Monk first hit the frontbench) for $351,000. And 16 years later, the dual-income couple had a mortgage twice that size. What gives?
While he was PM, he would've hardly spent a dime of his $540k salary (house, car, plane and staff all provided) – although half of it is trousered by those **bleep**s at the tax office.
The good news is that on retirement from Parliament, Abbott's life pension will be $307,542 (unless he takes the $1.53 million upfront and accepts a pension half that size). So what's he waiting for? Probably for Margie to finish unpacking the boxes…
