Light at the end of the tunnel

Saturday, 4th February 2012

Tony Abbott will be the next authentic leader of Australia, no matter what happens between Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, or whatever shenanigans the not-quite-so-faceless men of Labor attempt to pull off over the next 12 months. By authentic, we mean many things. In all likelihood, Mr Abbott’s government will be able to claim a genuine mandate to implement its policies, in stark contrast to the existing faux-legitimacy of a cobbled-together coalition built on broken promises and dodgy backroom deals.

The Abbott government will also be authentic in its policy prescriptions. The constant flip-flopping and obfuscation that has come to epitomise the ‘Gillarudd’ government will mercifully be consigned to the past. Forgotten in all the endless political games, the abandonment of ill-considered projects (let’s not bore ourselves by running through them all again), the trashing of commitments, the swapping of leadership roles and the giddying spinning of the truth is a simple fact: this is not how responsible governments should behave.

Mr Abbott himself will be authentic. Over two decades in public life he has stayed true to his convictions and core principles, and been frank about his Catholic beliefs. There has been no need to spray-paint a ‘real’ Tony onto a battered-up old one. No need to present himself in terms that don’t ring true, or that reek of hypocrisy and opportunism. To an extent, the rough edges have been smoothed out, and the language toned down, but none of this is different to how Bob Hawke or John Howard were spruced up by the image-makers. At heart, we all know what drives him and what he will fight for. Perhaps that is why his enemies fear him so much.

The contrast with Mr Rudd in opposition is striking. ‘Heavie Kevvie’ busied himself with his silly stack of notes and weird silences on the floor of parliament, falsely painting himself as Howard-lite. He was the great moralist who believed in climate change, yet baulked at the first hurdle. He was eager to ‘stop the boats’ but capitulated entirely on border control. He was the ‘economic conservative’ who went on to denounce capitalism. Gimmick after gimmick, falsehood after falsehood. Mr Abbott, on the other hand, has just got on with the job: aggressively opposing policies and highlighting their flaws. Now, we’ve had our share of disagreements with Mr Abbott — from his gung-ho support for the Afghanistan quagmire to his opposition to changing the Migration Act — but we also know he is the real deal. And as he showed at his National Press Club speech this week, he can inspire. Not for him any ‘detailed programmatic specificities’.

In this issue, we have asked prominent commentators to share with us their thoughts on how Tony Abbott can ‘nail it’ over the next 12 months — as he steps into his almost certain role as the next authentic leader of our nation.

A day of shame

‘Where’s Tony?’ asked Julia Gillard, in what has been touted as her rising above politics and showing concern for her colleague in a fraught situation. But a cynic might well suspect that the Prime Minister was, in fact, merely following her script and ensuring that Mr Abbott was in place to be photographed being booed and hissed at by Aboriginal protesters she knew to be agitated about his supposed call for them to ‘move on’. We shall never know. With the AFR decreeing that ‘no criminal act’ had been committed, the matter will remain uninvestigated by the authorities. But by any reading of the situation, an incitement to commit what became a violent act was knowingly instigated from within the Prime Minister’s office. Andrew Wilkie, emasculated by one ‘rat’ and now smelling another, has gone so far as to threaten to support a no-confidence motion in retaliation to this ‘appalling’ act.

Not once during the Hawke, Keating and Howard years was the office of Prime Minister so debased in such a shabby attempt to smear an opponent. To use the national day, in conjunction with a highly emotive issue such as indigenous welfare, for the purposes of a negative photo opportunity sums up everything that is grotesque about Labor’s addiction to spin and PR. Put aside for the moment who said what to whom and when. The obsessive anti-Abbott culture that could spawn such a plan is clearly rampant within the government and their ABC and union acolytes (witness Kim Sattler’s comments, hastily removed from Facebook, or ABC Radio’s role in lighting the fuse) and it is this insidious culture — The Hollowmen meets The Thick Of It — that is to blame.

Aboriginal activists have long labelled 26 January as Australia’s Day of Shame. For once, for all the wrong reasons, they are right.