Tony Abbott, Leader of the Opposition. Credit: Tony Abbott

By Simon Hukin:

The outcome of the leadership ballot today has demonstrated Tony Abbott will find it devastatingly difficult to unite his party room. With only one vote in it, it should be clear to the newly anointed leader that the party does not stand resolutely behind him. The wets – led as ever by Hockey, Turnbull and Pyne will likely lead a rebellion. Whether this is behind closed doors or in public – as the antics of the right were – only time will tell.

Yet the larger problem facing the new leader is that he is totally unelectable. His popularity with the public has never been great; the latest news poll suggests a slump in two-party preferred vote thanks to the leadership contention and this is likely to become a trend. Considering the slight bump Turnbull received in the polls for supporting the CPRS it’s clear the party has made the wrong decision.

Abbott is the ‘mad monk’; the zealous family values crusader, dedicated to the eradication of change and the promotion of intolerance. No gay marriage, no RU486, no climate change. In a largely moderate society such as ours he spells electoral suicide – a veritable seppuku – for the Liberal Party.

Paired with Bishop, who is perceived as something of a placeholder, Abbott’s leadership will be marked by disunity, controversy and incompetence. This is not necessarily due to Abbott himself – he’s a bright guy, if right wing – but his party is strife torn and needs a unifying figure, an adjective no one has ever thought to apply to him.

A wiser move would have been the election of Hockey. True, he is a bungler, but his moderate position and the ETS conscience vote he would have allowed were sure-fire mechanisms for uniting the party. After all, it is very difficult to complain about the policy of your leader when you’re not constrained by it. Plus the public like Hockey. As Turnbull suggested in his rather robust interview with Laurie Oakes, Hockey has always been the cuddly face of the party.

Why, then was Abbott elected? Apart from the Machiavellian machinations of Minchin, it seems he offers the only pillar of strength in an otherwise desolate and irresolute party room. The Turnbull brand has been tarnished by both OzCar and his attacks on his comrades, Hockey is incompetent and unprincipled, and the remainder (a motley assortment including Andrews, Robb, Pyne, Dutton, McFarlane, Bishop and Ruddock) are lacklustre at best.

Yet Abbott’s strength will work against him. He is strong in his belief in the wrong things. Australia is fairly moderate of aspect; a largely tolerant (if not accepting) society. The inner city intelligentsia so crucial to winning elections will shy away from his seeming extremism, and he’s not right enough (especially on Climate Change) to truly appease the Tuckeys and Fieldings of our world.

While he may be similar to Howard in ideological position, he is nothing like him in style. For one thing, he lacks the authority to take up the position of party-dictator Howard inhabited for many years. This lack will be his undoing, as dissension splits the party and it plunges further into the electoral abyss.

The ultimate outcome of any election under Abbott will be a landslide victory for the ALP. While they probably deserve it -  they have governed decently (if not fantastically), capitalised well on the mistakes of the opposition and fought its way out of an electoral morass – it still feels wrong to have the opposition destroy itself so wilfully and with such fervour. Good adversarial systems require unity and strong leadership on both sides of the chamber. An unchecked government is never at its best.

We can but hope a consensus candidate emerges from the dross of the Liberal Party prior to the next election; if they do not, our nation stands ill-governed, we face the prospect of decades of unopposed ALP rule, and, perhaps most importantly for the party, if they do not the campaign will be a walkover.

Simon Hukin is a student at the Australian National University, General Secretary of the Western Australian Secondary Students’ Association, peripatetic music teacher and general curmudgeon. He is heavily involved in politics and the union movement.

Tags: Australia, ets, independent news, liberal future, liberal leadership, Malcolm Turnbull, Tony Abbott