Back in the Abbott

Often when politicians are removed from positions of power, they soften. After the inevitable brooding period of watching Yes Minister reruns and trying to remember what they did when they last had time off in the early 2000s, an air of freedom envelopes them. Stripped of the suffocation and isolation of leadership, party lines, expectations and responsibilities, they become themselves again.

It's ironic that this post responsibility/post politics transformation has generally made them more appealing to the public and, in fact, better able to express their views. Leaving cabinet and/or leaving politics, at least in the eyes of the public, makes you better at the job you used to have.

We've seen it countless times, most recently with the current Prime Minister. Malcolm Turnbull was not a popular opposition leader. After Brendan Nelson (yes, remember Brendan Nelson) was removed by Turnbull, there was the suggestion that Kevin Rudd's frenetic populism had met its match. This did not eventuate. A combination of arrogant leadership, liaisons with a treacherous cockroach named Godwin Grech and a failure to get his own party on board with an ETS policy caused his demise within one year. He failed to connect with the public and Abbott ascended. Yet during those many dark days of the Abbott leadership, old Malcolm dug out his leather jacket, bought an iPhone and went on Q and A, a lot.

The public loved it and for the years of horrific drudgery that followed, much of which was catalogued on this blog (along the destruction of my sense of hope), Turnbull was the leader a large number of people wished we had.

Similar turnarounds have occurred before; Paul Keating was largely reviled by the time he left office, now many would love to see him back. Even John Winston Howard, once the bane of my goddamn existence, seems preferable to the horrifying politics of the last 5 years. However, I'm going to go out on a limb. This will not happen to Tony Abbott.

It just won't, because the man is not salvageable. He may become more himself but, you may be surprised to realise, for the last couple of years he's actually been holding himself back. What he says over the next couple of years will leave historians baffled at the collective psychosis that saw him elected. Seriously, he and Mark Latham would not be out of place occupying balcony seats at the theatre, heckling the show from above. It would be like the Muppets, but less funny and more socially damaging.

Tone's recent speech at the Margaret Thatcher lecture in London is a window into his unrestrained and simplistic vision of the world. Tony used the occasion to return to the only policy area where he has any claim to success: refugees and how refugees are bad. His advice to the Europeans was this: by letting these people in you are leading Europe 'into catastrophic error.' His reasoning: such 'misplaced altruism' will cause Europe to 'fundamentally weaken itself.' His solution: 'turning boats around' and that it will 'require some force.'

Feeling proud yet?

Abbott is advising that global refugee policy be revised down to the moral choices facing survivors in an apocalyptic zombie film.
You know those incredibly dangerous inflatable rafts floating around the Mediterranean with hundreds of people, and children, on them? Turn them around. Where to? Um….the first country they got to after Syria.

This is so ridiculous I am at a loss. Firstly, those rafts for the most part are not actually moving under their own steam. They are adrift. Turning them around would mean they would merely be facing the other direction. So what, you are going to tow them back to the Middle East? All of them?

Does he not understand the concept of numbers? If everyone fleeing a conflict just stopped in the first country they got to, that is, the one next door, what would that look like? How would that work? How many would die? What is unspoken here is that Abbott believes that should not enter the calculation. Such a suggestion would not make sense otherwise.

Abbott argues that Europe should study Australia as an example of how to deal with the refugee problem. This is the most backward thing I have ever heard. How European nations, like Germany, have dealt with this crisis should shame us.

Abbott, as I've always suspected, has no shame.

Mal-competent

Australians are currently high. Giddily high on the feeling of having a leader who speaks in full sentences, having considered the question he was asked before answering.

On the face of things, this is a pretty basic thing to be high on. It’s sort of like being bowled over when your suitcase arrives promptly at the baggage collection, thrilled when your train arrives on time or ecstatic when you fail to burn your toast. This is a triumph of the mundane – a celebration of not having to grit your teeth and swear under your breath in frustration.

This last week has rushed by, the public riding on waves of relief. Content is back, we forgot how much we love content. It doesn't seem to matter that the current refugee policy remains, or that marriage equality seems doomed to a divisive public vote, or that Scott Morrison is a Treasurer with no idea. We are no longer an embarrassment. Our Prime Minister does not eat raw onions out of the ground; he probably goes to a growers market, one of those fancy ones with the little sprinklers that make the fruit glisten and a shelf in the corner with jars of conserve wrapped in tartan. This guy eats apples, probably, who knows?

For now, this will be enough. We will be less critical and, strangely, less aware of politics than we were before. As long as the new regime can contain its internal differences, it will cruise to the next election with the bold platform of being mildly competent.

This is where you need an effective opposition, to provide a viable alternative, a different vision, a rebuttal of the status quo. What a shame we don't have one. Their political muscles are atrophied from boxing a paper cut-out villain who, oddly, is now reflected in their political rhetoric. The one reminder of Tony Abbott's two year reign of hideous national embarrassment is the continued existence of the sub-optimal bloke who opposed him. 'This is who we preferred to lead back then, haha, how quaint we were.'

There is not time for another coup; it's not practical under current rules in any case. Only the cleansing fire of an electoral humiliation will bring renewal and torch the dead wood. Then, and only then, will we have a game worth playing.

Until then, we have a born-to-rule Emperor of the centre-right.

Just bask in the normality.

Bill Shock

"[B]y God… our country is so much better than this."

Is it though? The last 5 years, 3 months have been a political shit show that has managed to mix engrossingly treacherous leadership beat-downs with incredibly tedious and repetitive 'debates' in which no one was convinced of anything. The reality is treacherous leadership beat-downs are the only thing Australian politics has going for it at the moment.

As if this is news to anyone, but the public is now so clearly detached from the political process that memories of this week's events will fade into a fog of indifference. Wake me up when we have a new Prime Minister.

There does seem to be a sense of relief in Turnbull's ascension, and a sense that propriety has returned. An actual Prime Minister: born to rule attitude, leather jacket smugness, the too-rich-to-be-touch-with-the-electorate arrogance. This guy will still fuck you, but he'll most likely ask first before ignoring your protests. And hey, look: he's wearing an iWatch.

Shorten is panicked of course, because for the last two years he has been up against a cartoon character. He's been fighting a Wile E. Coyote type figure that constantly opened Acme cases that exploded in his face. Abbott's most spectacular achievement must be the fact that he made Bill Shorten look like the Road Runner. Bill Shorten is not even convincing when asked if his name is Bill Shorten.

His incredibly tedious rhythm of speaking echoes a ten year old reading a social studies presentation his mum wrote for him, or a class of six year olds reciting "Good morning Miss Voter" at the start of each day. He has the gravitas of an acrylic sock puppet, and whoever has their hand up his arse is anyone's guess. His appearance in the middle of the Liberal Party spill coverage to recite a paragraph of instantly forgettable dross speaks to his complete lack of political instinct. Just what that did, other than provide an instant, inferior comparison to Turnbull's slick, confident statement announcing the challenge, is beyond me.

Turnbull's main rival will not be Shorten in any case; it will be elements within his own party who wish him ill. There are many that do. If Turnbull is constantly fighting leaks and animosity from former Abbott zealots then he may stumble, and give Bill Shorten the most staggeringly undeserved election win since, well…the last election.

And then the shit show will continue.

Wake me up when we have a new Prime Minister.