By ABC's Marius Benson
Posted November 01, 2011 12:55:34
With the prospect of Tony Abbott becoming prime minister by November 2013 at the latest growing stronger, the fight is on for the heart and soul of the Abbott government.
So what sort of government would Tony Abbott lead?
The central uncertainty over an Abbott government stems from the nature of the leader. He is a man made up of islands of intense conviction set in seas of policy indifference. According to those who worked with him he is as hard to engage on issues that don't interest him as he is to move away from those that do.
His lack of interest in economic issues is legendary. When quizzed about the NBN he volunteered he was not a tech head. That relaxed approach to areas of no special interest points to a likely characteristic of an Abbott government. As a leader he would be a delegator in the Hawke, or more markedly Reagan, mould. Ministers would not be subject to the micromanagement that characterised the Rudd years.
Free rein in areas that don't engage is likely to be balanced by a fiercely energetic drive in areas that do. The Minister for Indigenous Affairs could expect plenty of prime ministerial input.
Abbott worked for the then-opposition leader, John Hewson, as a speech writer in the in the early '90s and Hewson described him to Four Corners in these words:
"(He is)...one of the most frustrating people I've ever met... always has his own agenda... He was always pretty much on the right and issues that were very important to him, like the monarchy he would allow to dominate his thinking on other issues as well."
Many of the bees in the Abbott bonnet buzz with the hum of his Catholic faith, his Anglophile nature and his perception of Australia as a Western European outpost in an Asian part of the world. That "outpost" view was one of the perceptions that made John Howard warm to him when they first met.
Peter Costello in a recent newspaper column portrayed Abbott as at odds with the traditional Liberal path of free market individualism and in favour of a collectivist approach. This Costello saw as rooted in his Catholic faith and DLP past political associations. Costello fought John Howard for a decade over the prime minister's preference for a tax-and-spend approach and clearly the former treasurer sees Abbott as continuing the approach of the PM he so much admired.
Liberal Party champions of the free market would also have been dismayed to see Tony Abbott's enthusiastic advocacy of government intervention in the Qantas dispute. That stand is in marked contrast to many business people who are saying the company and unions should be left to box it out themselves.
It is hard to estimate how much Tony Abbott's personal passions will drive policy. He has already said that as leader he cannot indulge in personal views, but there are still clear signs he will be driven by personal enthusiasms.
As Opposition Leader he has had little to say on foreign policy generally and the "Arab Spring" is one of many global developments that have gone largely unremarked. But he recently devoted a speech to one small aspect of the movement, when he addressed a "Stand Up for Egypt's Copts" rally in Sydney. Speaking of the violent clashes with security forces which had left about 25 Coptic Christians dead he said:
"I want to say to you that it is an outrage what has happened to your community. It is an outrage which should cry out to heaven for rectification."
One issue on which a prime minister Abbott would be watched with interest is abortion. It is the policy point at which the public and private Abbott meet most sharply.
In the past Tony Abbott has spoken strongly on the issue. In 2004, for example., he said:
"I'm pleased that some of Australia's leading feminists seem to be having a rethink about the abortion culture. I certainly am very uncomfortable with the abortion culture as it stands."
He now says he will make no changes to abortion laws and will not try to ban the morning after drug RU486. He lost a battle over that drug as health minister.
He did succeed in establishing a helpline to "give more support to women facing an unexpected pregnancy". In his book Battlelines Abbott wrote on that helpline:
"It seemed to be the best way to nudge the abortion rate down without affecting women's right to choose."
If he is prime minister, Tony Abbott will be closely watched to see if he makes other efforts to "nudge the abortion rate down."
The Abbott agenda becomes a more potent force in government when it is linked to the Abbott nature. Like everyone who devotes their life to politics, he likes power. He likes being a decision maker and he is temperamentally attracted to acting without consulting.
Soon after becoming leader he announced a parental leave policy to provide paid leave for six months on full pay up to an annual income of $150,000 at a cost of $2.7 billion.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that his "livid" party colleagues rounded on him over the policy. But his response was to confirm the policy declaring, with apparent insouciance that he had made a "leader's call".
''Sometimes it's better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission," a clearly un-contrite Abbott stated. More "leader's calls" should be anticipated in an Abbott administration. The same readiness to make a leader's call was evident when he "predicted" that the Coalition would oppose the Government-Andrew Wilkie pokies laws and if elected would rescind them.
At the moment it is much easier to see what an Abbott government would un-do rather than what it would do. At the top of the "un-do" list is the carbon price bills which he has pledged, in blood, to rescind. Whether that can be done depends on the outcome of an election that is, perhaps, two years away - and quite possibly another, double dissolution, election after that. Then maybe some legal challenges.
The Opposition is promising a cut in public service numbers, similar perhaps to John Howard in 1996. But after the '96 cuts government expanded under the Howard prime ministership and it is hard to see Tony Abbott overseeing any lasting contraction in the public sector.
Winning the Opposition leadership has had a moderating effect on Tony Abbott, to the disappointment of his opponents who had come to rely on a regular supply of self-implosions and gaffes from him. If he becomes prime minister the weight of office could produce an even more sober Tony Abbott.
Before the last election Labor tried to paint Abbott as an extreme ideologue: "Howard without the pragmatism". But Tony Abbott himself has declared that in any battle between policy purity and pragmatism, he's on the side of pragmatism.
And if he did win government he would be guided by the one clear objective of anyone who has ever won power - a second term.
