THE best thing about Tony Abbott’s first year as Prime Minister has been — thank God — he isn’t Labor. But that’s no longer the main reason he’s looking hard to beat, after months of trailing in the polls.
Abbott has now become what long seemed impossible. A year after his election win he looks like a real Prime Minister and not just because he’s just got all his big promises through Parliament.
Sure, it may seem a backhander to praise Abbott most for at least not giving us another year of government like Labor’s previous six. But that’s not nothing. Could voters really have tolerated more mad Kevin Rudd-like spending on overpriced school halls and pink batts?
Could we really have endured more Julia Gillard-style c ck-ups of the kind that had hundreds of boat people drowning and the live cattle trade wrecked overnight?
Could the country really have afforded more mega-deficits, more class war rhetoric, more trouble with Indonesia and billions wasted on carbon taxes?
Abbott, on the other hand, has — so far — given us no bureaucratic disasters. He is not ramping up spending. He has actually fixed disasters of Labor’s own making, repairing the relationship with Indonesia, stopping the boats and cauterising the worst of the utterly grotesque waste of Labor’s National Broadband Network disaster.
He’d have fixed more if Labor wasn’t stopping him in the Senate, stupidly joining with the Greens and Clive Palmer’s senators to block some of his cuts and welfare reforms.
Not repeating the chaos and waste of Rudd and Gillard is not a coincidence. It is always the main virtue of conservative politicians that they not only have the accelerator that Labor pumps like madmen but have a brake as well.
In fact, a brake is just what Abbott promised a year ago next Sunday in claiming victory: “I now look forward to forming a government that is competent, that is trustworthy and which purposefully and steadfastly and methodically sets about delivering on our commitments.”
No more Rudd rush-rush. No more Gillard slap-dash. Just methodical problem-solving, one careful step after the other.
And, indeed, this week Abbott fulfilled the last of his biggest commitments, striking a surprise deal with Palmer to scrap the mining tax and pass $10 billion of cuts to welfare spending.
Now Abbott can credibly boast to have ticked off all four of his biggest promises:to scrap the carbon tax, scrap the mining tax, stop the boats and bring the Budget (kind of) back under control. True, this Government has broken other promises, notably to bring in no new taxes and to reform the Racial Discrimination Act to restore free speech, but it’s now way ahead on the ledger.
Yet the (re) making of Abbott was already complete before Palmer gave him this week’s breakthrough deal.
Abbott has become a real PM by showing all the steadiness his many critics, even in the Liberal Party, thought just wasn’t in his character.
Take Malcolm Turnbull, who Abbott toppled as Liberal leader five years ago. Not long afterwards, Turnbull savaged Abbott for his “remarkable lack of conviction” on global warming policies, claiming Abbott would preface each change of mind with “Mate, mate, I know I am a bit of a weathervane on this, but ...”
In his single most disastrous interview, in 2009, Abbott himself conceded he’d been called “The Weathervane” and excused a backflip on a tax promise by saying “sometimes, in the heat of discussion, you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark”.
Yet in office Abbott has been nothing but steady — and to the point of dangerously obstinate, claim even some of his supporters on the front bench.
This steadiness first became clear when Abbott knocked back handouts for Holden and then SPC, before suggesting Qantas not come begging either. Brave calls, good calls.
Since then Abbott has made a virtue of not buckling, dismissing even demands to dump his weaker ministers, his dud parental leave scheme, his $7 Medicare co-payment and his stalled Budget cuts, which were so badly sold.
I’ve thought some of those stands just mulish. The overgenerous parental leave scheme, for instance, is not just bad policy but a free kick for Labor. But in a strange way, even that stubbornness is paying off for Abbott now that we’re facing growing threats to our security.
Abbott responded with firmness, decisiveness and clear moral purpose to the shooting down of MH17, Russian aggression in Ukraine and the rise of the Islamic State. Once again there was no trimming or turning, hesitation or fumbling.
THAT helped to make his stubbornness seem a comforting strength. And, ironically, with that image now setting, Abbott has more freedom to compromise on his Budget without seeming weak. This week’s deal with Palmer, despite the compromises, looks like a triumph rather than retreat.
So a year after his election, Abbott has truly become a Prime Minister — firm, authoritative and patient — whether or not you actually approve of his policies.
It is a role that Abbott clearly finds comfortable. It is the real Tony and one starting to register with the public. The familiar sneers of his critics no longer seem to stick. The budgie smuggler jokes have died. The “misogynist” smear looks like the lie it always was and last weekend’s anti-Abbott marches were a complete flop, lacking the F-Tony fury of the first.
Yes, one year down means there are still two more for Abbott to get through before the next election.
There’s a lot yet than can go wrong. An economic downturn will expose just how broke the Government really is. Abbott hasn’t even started to reform workplace laws. Unemployment is still worryingly high. And Abbott isn’t loved. But he does now look like a Prime Minister and has a good story to tell on promises kept. There is now much more to him than not being Rudd or Gillard.
This Prime Minister has arrived and doesn’t look like leaving any time soon.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/tony-abbott-has-arrived-as-a-true-leader/story-fni0ffxg-122...
