Its obvious weve lost hope and are sitting back waiting for the LOLs
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Mega Thread Tony Abbott
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Its obvious weve lost hope and are sitting back waiting for the LOLs
When he said "I'm not going to change my position based on the fashion of the moment", I thought that he was talking about the 'fashion' of politicians jumping on board for cheap political points. i.e. he was having a dig at Rudd for his politically-convenient conversion.
I guess he could have meant that gay marriage itself is a fad, but that wasn't my first impression.
This is the irony.
Tony Abbott has been unfairly demonised by the left for years, and only now, at the election witching hour, people are finally seeing that he is a very good human being. Those that know Kevin Rudd, say, "If you don't know Kevin Rudd you like him, but if you know him, you hate his guts"
The reverse could be said of Abbott. If you don't know him, you don't like him, but the more you know him, the more you like him. The man is a volunteer lifesaver, volunteer firefighter, was the brain child being the pollie pedal charity event, helps out in aboriginal communities etc.
He is a smart, deeply introspective individual. He is very engaging, and legitimately interested in people. A great story about Tony Abbott emerged during the campaign. He was getting heckled by some nutjob, so Abbott took the man aside, and had a conversation with him for a full 10 minutes. After this, the man thought Abbott was a legend and "wasn't that bad after all."
Can you imagine Kevin Rudd doing a similar thing? No way. Tony Abbott will prove to be one of our most popular PM's mark my words.
Ah yes I remember how unfairly the left demonised him when as health minister he attempted to push his own religious beliefs onto all Australian women.
Or was it when he attacked the character of Bernie Banton to help out his mates at James Hardy?
Perhaps it was when he happily appeared in front of misogynist signs at a rally of nutters?
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Rock Solid Ironclad Guarantee....
I've met Abbott a few times in a non-political setting and I admit that I quite like him. And he is quite smart, and very engaging, in a way that doesn't come across in his tightly-controlled public persona. He is not really that different to a lot of older Australian males. A little sexist in that patronising / paternalistic way, and somewhat stuck in the past, but not what anybody would regard as mendacious.
As a political leader, his personal philosophy is quite an issue for me though. Whether it's PPL or divorce or marriage or abortion, he is very much an old school Catholic conservative. I was not particularly worried about any of that when it looked like the Greens would control the Senate, but that is looking more uncertain with every day. I am hoping that he's cautious enough not to try anything too crazy in his first term, but you never know. Certainly, if he has to deal with Madigan and the DLP to get things passed then I can see him happily giving a lot of concessions away. Those two are made for each other.
I think he will be a competent and reasonably well-liked Prime Minister as long as there are mechanisms to keep him in check. If he gets started on social engineering, he'll be very divisive and we'll probably all regret booting out Kulia Ruddard.
As a political leader, his personal philosophy is quite an issue for me though. Whether it's PPL or divorce or marriage or abortion, he is very much an old school Catholic conservative. I was not particularly worried about any of that when it looked like the Greens would control the Senate, but that is looking more uncertain with every day. I am hoping that he's cautious enough not to try anything too crazy in his first term, but you never know. Certainly, if he has to deal with Madigan and the DLP to get things passed then I can see him happily giving a lot of concessions away. Those two are made for each other.
I think he will be a competent and reasonably well-liked Prime Minister as long as there are mechanisms to keep him in check. If he gets started on social engineering, he'll be very divisive and we'll probably all regret booting out Kulia Ruddard.
You can stop all your spin now Dan Tone will be tucked nice & tight in the Lodge come this time next week, time will tell just what sort of PM Abbott will make & whether or not he breaks any of his promises.
I don't think Abbott needs to not have a Senate majority to keep him in check. He'll not want to overstep his mark or the will of the people. He was against Howard doing that with work choices and the response to it validated his point of view, as he has spoken and written about since.
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The memory of 2007 will keep Abbott in check.
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Engaging? He was wooden as a post on Kitchen Cabinet. I am a big fan of his , and all the mail is that he is a great person to work for and he around but the two things that detract is the fact that he has not had a good history with the ladies - no one contemplates the priesthood unless they have problems conning up or having mature relationships with woman, and he will do or say anything to win
His comment that the Howard govt didnt do anything wrong is a bit of a worry, you can always improve
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He was against WorkChoices not because he feared of the will of the people but due to his own philosophies towards workplace relations. Caesar is quite right in that he, like all politicians, will need the checks and balances of the Senate to run an effective government. Howard was a reasonably moderate Prime Minister and even he over stepped the mark when he went unchecked.
He will be as much a social engineer as any Labor politician, as in many ways he is cut from the same cloth. He is certainly not going to govern in a way the 18-35 single men who whinge about the creeping nanny state are going to enjoy, aside from maybe lower income taxes.
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That's a bit of revisionism right there.
There's not much moderate about fully supporting a company restructuring their business and declaring insolvency for the sole purpose of breaking workplace agreements and replacing their unionised workers with non-union workers.
He was a pretty extreme neoliberal with a strong bias towards business (particularly big business) and an extreme dislike of unionisation. For the most part he was held in check by the senate but in terms of workplace relations there wasn't much moderate about him at all.
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I'm talking pre-WorkChoices though. He had his ideology, but he did a lot of things that weren't ideologically consistent, and more politically pragmatic. I wouldn't call him an extreme neoliberal. If he was he could have done a lot more.
Anyone who describes Howard as an 'extreme neoliberal' doesn't appreciate how moderate Australian rightwing politics actually are.
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The specific point I brought up was referring to the waterfront dispute in 1998. The Patrick Corporation shifted all their assets between companies so the current (union affiliated) employees were employed by a company that was insolvent. Then they hired other, non union-affiliated employees under the new company. He and Reith gave full support to that. I'm not sure how else to describe that approach to workplace reforms than being at the extreme right of the scale, fully backing business in an illegal push to remove a unionised workforce.
Now I'm not arguing he wasn't pragmatic. He picked his fights and couldn't possibly have lasted so long if he tried to implement everything he wanted to straight away. But he did implement workchoices and the reaction to that showed how far away from the center his views really were. In terms of industrial relations I think it's hard to argue that Howard isn't the most right-wing PM in living memory.
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I was mainly referring to an Australian sense. Poor choice of words but he certainly wasn't "moderate" on many issues, particularly industrial relations.
So have you decided to vote Greens in the senate yet?
Greens are for eating, not electing.
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bombermick
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I hope he keeps his promise not to mix his personal religious views and politics that he made on Annabel's show. The worst thing for Abbott would be to have some of the Evanglical parties or the DLP have the balance of power in the senate. I don't believe he's likely to head down that path, but he's better off having to fight Labor/Greens in the senate - at least early in the job.
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bombermick
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It's annoying, but I meant bigger issues like abortion, sex education and gay marriage. You can't call your telco to get around that ...
Politics in Australia is very centrist. The Liberal Party is quite moderate by world standards for the right wing.
You want a real conservative/neoliberal party, try living under a Republican government in the US or a Conservative government in the UK.
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He's against all those things.
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