A CHAOTIC Prime Minister’s office has meant confusion in the government’s message. After Abbott promised to remove “barnacles” from the ship of state, his office briefed journalists about what this meant. Says one leading journalist: “There was total confusion — was the Medicare co-payment, for example, a barnacle or not?”
Another political observer said: “He (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 I’m sure Howard would never have done. Abbott has taken a series of decisions which are politically lethal. It’s worse than crazy brave, it’s ignorant brave.”
A central problem is that Abbott is not good on his feet. It’s 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 arrived. 
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 Abbott’s adviser on indigenous affairs, Warren Mundine.
Abbott delivered a solid speech, and then took questions, but reluctantly, telling the audience: “The 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 I’m going to do my best to be as dull as I possibly can in responding to that question.”
It was not to be. Answering a question on an unrelated issue, Abbott wandered into tricky territory: “I 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.” At the top table, Mundine blanched.
)
