Posting the whole article as the link won't provide access for some.
The Australian- Part One
Tony Abbott and his Chief of Staff are running a dysfunctional government
Tony Abbott in command, but is Peta Credlin in control?
AS he sat down for a meeting in Canberra on November 25 last year, Tony Abbott was a man under pressure.
Only days before he had announced to the nation that he was going to clear the political โbarnaclesโ off the ship of state.
Abbott was engulfed by domestic crises.
But on this day, he had something else on his mind: a unilateral invasion of Iraq. Abbott wanted Australia to take on Islamic State.
Australia, he told the meeting, could take a lead with an invasion of northern Iraq using 3500 of our ground troops.
His powerful chief of staff, Peta Credlin, offered no resistance.
Then Abbott tried out his audacious idea on military planners.
They were aghast.
As word of the proposal swept through the military hierarchy there was resounding opposition.
โHas he ever come up with something like this before?โ one military official asked.
In fact, he had.
Four months earlier Paul Kelly had revealed in The Australian that following the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, Abbott wanted to put 1000 Australian troops into Ukraine. The Prime Minister had to be talked out of that idea.
This is Abbott the strong man, โshirt-frontingโ Vladimir Putin and destroying the Islamic State โdeath cultโ. This is the Abbott who works best with the public โ providing his only glimmers of polling success in a miserable 17 months. It is little surprise that this is where he is comfortable. Insiders say that, these days, Abbott sits for much of the day in his office in Parliament House pondering national security, Islamic State and reading Winston Churchill. He has 50 staff in his office but he insists on writing many of his speeches as Credlin, sitting in the office next door, works the phones, managing the detail.
She is, as Abbott himself has said, โthe fiercest political warriorโ he has ever worked with.
This is the Australian duumvirate, a new form of government in which Abbott and Credlin run the country. They are, in reality, co-prime ministers.
ON election night in 2013, Abbottโs staff, journalists and friends gathered at the Four Seasons Hotel overlooking Sydney Harbour. Credlin was hosting a victory party and the mood was triumphant. When Tony OโLeary, long-time media adviser to John Howard and a key figure in Abbottโs successful election campaign, arrived, he was met by security guards who questioned his right to enter. The guards disappeared inside to check whether he was welcome. Twenty minutes later OโLeary was escorted from the premises by security.
It was a public humiliation for the Howard loyalist in front of many of the journalists he had been dealing with for 15 years.
Credlin denies she blocked OโLeary that night. But to many in the Liberal Party, OโLeary had been โCredlinedโ, a verb now commonly used by Liberal staff members. Asked for a definition, one cabinet ministerโs staff member ran his finger across his neck.
โTo be beheaded,โ he said. โAnyone who is not on message is simply killed. It began when we were in opposition, then through the campaign, and it hasnโt stopped. I donโt think theyโve realยญised weโre now in government.โ
One minister told Inquirer Credlinโs power would not continue. The party would bring down Abbott if they had to, he said. Ominously for Abbott, the minister is someone who has publicly been defending him.
โThey (Abbott and Credlin) have unnecessarily made enemies which means thereโs no reservoir of goodwill when they need it,โ he said.
โThe partyroom just wonโt accept the management style of that office to continue. If the management style continues this way Abbott will not take us to the next election, Malcolm Turnbull will.โ
One Liberal powerbroker told Inquirer: โAbbott has two problems โ Credlinโs control and Joeโs (Hockey) poor performance as Treasurer.
โHeโs trapped; he doesnโt want to get rid of Credlin for loyalty reasons and he doesnโt want to get rid of Joe because he knows he would blow the place up because he doesnโt want to be the fall guy.โ
Another influential Liberal says that Abbott will inevitably face another challenge unless he acts.
โWe warned you โtake Hockey out and take Credlin outโ and you have done neither,โ he said. โWe canโt let this lot do another budget.โ
IN opposition, Abbott and Credlin proved to be an extraordinary fighting unit as they destroyed two Labor prime ministers: Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. Across six years they have become an inseparable unit: in 2013, for example, Credlin spent 200 days on the road, mostly with Abbott.
But this duo in combat mode, in office, is now endangering the government. Their modus operandi is what helped drive 39 members of the parliamentary party to push for a leadership spill two weeks ago.
In this new order, Credlin interrupts ministers in budget meetings; effectively runs the Expenditure Review Committee as Abbott sits silently; and manยญages the Cabinet Office as well as the PMโs office. While previous prime ministerial advisers have coveted anonymity, Credlin makes no secret of her opinion.
Last year, standing next to Abbott, she told a group of Australian journalists that Barack Obama was โthe lamest of lame ducksโ. Abbott said nothing.
On one occasion, Abbott made no complaint when Credlin put her hand in front of his face to stop him replying to a question from an editor.
Sometimes the chief of staff even finishes the Prime Ministerโs sentences. Sometimes she answers for him even as they sit alongside each other. At a dinner in Canberra last year Abbott was fired up over the international profile he had gained by threatening to โshirt-frontโ Putin over flight MH17. One guest asked Abbott about national security, but it was Credlin who answered. Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and John Howard all had strong advisers but none of them would have cut across their boss in this manner.
Remarkably, Credlin was a key architect of the budget, sitting in on ERC meetings, sometimes interrupting ministers.
โNone of us told her to back off, which maybe we should have,โ one of those in the meetings said.
In Canberra, politicians and journalists alike use the phrase โcommand and controlโ whenever they talk about the Credlin phenomenon. As former treasurer Peter Costello, once a close friend to Abbott, said in a recent newspaper column: โThe command and control model is not helping the Liberal Party, it is strangling it.โ
Credlinโs control over Abbott appears complete โ she decides who he sees, what the agenda is, who is appointed to run the offices of cabinet ministers, the order of cabinet business.
โShe even chooses his ties,โ says one cabinet ministerโs staffer. โShe likes blue!โ
One of Abbottโs oldest friends says the relationship between Abbott and Credlin is โan elusive male-female dynamicโ.
At 180cm, the 43-year-old Credlin towers over the Prime Minister. But itโs Abbottโs โexaggerated gallantry towards womenโ, according to the old friend, which explains why Abbott allows her such a dominant role. The friend adds that Abbott is also โlazy on detailโ, another reason Credlin has been left to micro-manage the government.
Indeed, many who know Abbott well say that he believes he cannot run the country without her.
โYou wouldnโt be here if it wasnโt for Peta,โ he has told colleagues who raised complaints with him.
Says political journalist Malcolm Farr: โIf it wasnโt for some of those backbenchers attending a thousand sausage sizzles and Macedonian national days Abbott wouldnโt be there.
โEven if Peta Credlin has been a tyrant, it is Abbottโs office. He should be defending his own decisions, not hers. You wonder about Abbottโs maturity: he plays male games but he needs someone to look after him, to do the work for him.โ
So insular has Abbott become that it took him 16 months after winning the election to have a meeting with his pollster, Mark Textor.
โEven the governmentโs pollster canโt get to see the PM,โ one Liberal senator said in exasperation. โThe problem is there is a ยญfunnel into the PMโs office, not a sieve. The funnel is Peta Credlin, and no ideas can get to Abbott unless people get them through Credlin.โ
The PMโs office, says another insider, is riven with distrust. The bad blood started early in the government. When Jane McMillan was hired by Credlin as director of the press office Credlin told McMillan that another staff member had not wanted her to get the job. It was a revelation that created instant ill will within the office. Credlin would later fall out bitterly with McMillan. An indication of how dysfunctional the office has become is that last week the man who replaced McMillan, Andrew Hirst, was not able to answer a simple question: Does Jane McMillan still work for the PM?
โIโll have to get back to you,โ he replied.
Eight days later, Hirst came back: โJane resigned in late January.โ
Another source from the office said Credlin had tried to sideline anyone who had a direct line to Abbott and replace them with former colleagues from the office of Helen Coonan, where Credlin was chief of staff in the Howard years.
Says another insider: โPeta has put her plants all through the system, in many ministerial offices. This way she can know whatโs going on.โ
Another problem is that Credlinโs husband is the Liberal Partyโs federal director, Brian Loughnane. Previously, if a minister or donor had a problem with the PMโs office they could approach the federal director, and vice versa.
Former Liberal Party federal treasurer Michael Yabsley was someone who dealt with the problem first hand.
In 2010, journalist Niki Savva detailed in The Australian the resignation of Yabsley.
She wrote: โYabsley felt he could neither speak openly to Loughnane about the leaderโs office (Abbott), nor did he feel able to speak candidly to the leaderโs office if he had a complaint about the organisation or Loughnane. He has told friends he rang Loughยญnane one day to discuss a matter involving the leaderโs office that was troubling him. He was gob-smacked when Loughnane finished the conversation by telling him: โIโll tell Peta when she gets out of the shower.โ โ
On other occasions, however, when commentators have sugยญgested how the PMโs office could engage more politically with backbenchers or cabinet, Loughnane himself has offered the commentators some encouragement.
THE Prime Minister, such a street-fighter in opposition, is now fighting on too many fronts, including some created by his trusted chief of staff. Even as the government has been imploding, Credlin has insisted on approving appointments, not just for her own side but for independent MPs. Indeed, she has caused a revolt by crossbenchers over her control of their staff appointments, insisting all staff must live in Canberra or in the electorate of their member to save money.
The edict led to Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie recently threatening to sue the government for discrimination over the refusal to allow one of her staff to live in Brisbane. The staff member has health issues that require her to remain at her home in Brisbane rather than move to Tasmania. Abbott was forced to intervene personally in this case. Itโs an example of his confused priorities: as his government crumbles around him, the PM takes time out to micro-manage a problem with a senatorโs staff member.
Credlinโs policy has also led to a struggle with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop whose senior adviser, Murray Hansen, is Brisbane based. Bishop refused Credlinโs edict that he move to Perth.
Independent senator Nick Xenophon has led the battle of the crossbenchers against Credlinโs โ and by association โ Abbottโs interference in their staffing arrangements. Says Xenophon: โI really have lost confidence in him.โ
In contrast, Xenophon says, Malcolm Turnbull, Bishop and Scott Morrison are โall very capable people with good communications skillsโ.
Through the governmentโs appointments committee, now referred to by some as the โStar Chamberโ, Credlin has vetoed several candidates put forward by cabinet ministers. Under John Howard, Peter Reith chaired this committee and rarely used his veto, insisting that a cabinet minister should be trusted with being able to choose the person who ran their office. But Abbott has appeared happy to give Credlin her head.
One of the conventions in Australian government has been that the Treasurer has been free to hire or fire the all-important Treasury head. After winning office, Hockey decided that he wanted to retain Martin Parkinson as head of Treasury but Abbott and Credlin decided Parkinson would lose his job.
A CHAOTIC Prime Ministerโs office has meant confusion in the governmentโs message. After Abbott promised to remove โbarnaclesโ from the ship of state, his office briefed journalists about what this meant. Says one leading journalist: โThere was total confusion โ was the Medicare co-payment, for example, a barnacle or not?โ
Another political observer said: โHe (Abbott) has done all sorts of things John Howard would never have considered doing. He decided not to keep the car industry going and John Howard would have kept it going, and his move for a Medicare co-payment is something Iโm sure Howard would never have done. Abbott has taken a series of decisions which are politically lethal. Itโs worse than crazy brave, itโs ignorant brave.โ
A central problem is that Abbott is not good on his feet. Itโs not surprising that Credlin tries to keep him on a tight leash. When he speaks off the cuff he can say things that are controversial, including his comment last year that Australia was unsettled, or scarcely settled, before the British ยญarrived.
It was in Melbourne on July 3. Abbott was the dinner speaker at the Melbourne Institute conference co-partnered by The Australian. Sitting at the main table was Abbottโs adviser on indigenous affairs, Warren Mundine.
Abbott delivered a solid speech, and then took questions, but reluctantly, telling the audience: โThe reason why I tried to avoid any questions this evening was because the last time I answered questions at this gathering the answers to the questions were so colourful that the speech got no reporting whatsoever. So Iโm going to do my best to be as dull as I possibly can in responding to that question.โ
It was not to be. Answering a question on an unrelated issue, Abbott wandered into tricky territory: โI guess our country owes its existence to a form of foreign investment by the British government in the then unsettled or scarcely settled great south land.โ At the top table, Mundine blanched.
One of Abbottโs close friends told Inquirer that she felt in Abbottโs mind there was a doubt about whether he had legitimacy as Prime Minister. The friend, who has been close to Abbott for 20 years, says: โItโs a bit like James Packer and Kerry Packer โ for a long time James felt he had not lived up to his fatherโs legacy, and Tony Abbott feels he has not lived up to the legacy of his mentor, John Howard.โ
The accidental nature of Abbottโs rise to the highest office is revealed by the manner in which he became opposition leader. When Liberals turned against Turnbull, it was Hockey who was well positioned. The night before the vote, the Nationalsโ Barnaby Joyce visited Abbottโs Canberra flat to urge him to contest the leadership.
โThere needs to be an anti-ETS candidate,โ Joyce told him, a reference to the fact both Turnbull and Hockey supported an emissions trading scheme.
Abbott had not planned to run. He had been bruised by his experience in 2007 after the defeat of the Howard government when he could not get a single person in the partyroom to vote for him. The right wing in the party told him he was โtoo conservativeโ.
But on this occasion Joyce convinced him to run, and he defeated Turnbull by one vote.
Today, the view among his parliamentary colleagues is that while Abbott may โhang onโ for a few months, he is terminally wounded. The dominant view is that the knighting of Prince Philip made a deeply unpopular leader a national figure of fun.
While there had been rumblings about Abbottโs judgment, for many colleagues the morning of Tuesday, January 27, was the crunch point.
It was the day after Australia Day and the full impact of Abbott granting of a knighthood to the prince reverberated across the country.
Abbott was savaged. Even in his heartland, Sydneyโs 2GB radio, the audience mocked the PM. If Abbott was listening that day, he would have detected something much worse than anger โ ridicule. One caller said Abbott should resign and be appointed โLord Tony of Warringahโ, a reference to Abbottโs Sydney electorate.
Peter Costello wrote in The Daily Telegraph: โKnighting Prince Philip was the barbecue stopper of the century. It completely hijacked Australia Day. Rarely have I heard such ridicule.โ
