By ABC's Annabel Crabb
Photo: Tony Abbott's paid parental leave scheme is cordially despised by much of the Prime Minister's party room. (AAP: Alan Porritt)
On paid parental leave, Tony Abbott is discovering what happens when your policies seem out of step with your political views: your colleagues don't like it, and your opponents don't believe it. Annabel Crabb writes.
Think about the circumstances under which Tony Abbott took the leadership of the Liberal Party. The party was in open rebellion, perilously split over the bipartisan deal Malcolm Turnbull was just inches from signing with Kevin Rudd to introduce an emissions trading scheme in Australia.
And he might have signed it, too, had an ailing Andrew Robb - still on sick leave and suffering badly with depression - not turned up to the relevant party room meeting on November 24, 2009, with a secret mission to torpedo Turnbull's plans.
Robb passed a note up to Turnbull, advising him that the side effects of his depression medication tended to make him very tired and that "I'd be really grateful if you could get me to my feet soon".
Turnbull agreed, whereupon Robb took to his feet and denounced the deal. His intervention was enough (he had been a fervent backer of emissions trading up till then) to do a mortal injury both to the emissions trading scheme, and to Turnbull's leadership. It was an extraordinary act.
The subsequent three-way leadership ballot, conducted among historic levels of confusion, panic and resentment, was won by Tony Abbott - to the surprise of many - by a single vote.
In the space of two days, the Coalition had gone from active co-sponsorship of carbon pricing to muscular opposition, under a man who once had famously described climate change as "complete crap".
That was a weird couple of days.
But the weirdest thing is the fact that, in the five years since, Abbott has not experienced any serious degree of internal insurrection on the climate change issue.
The entire party room had campaigned with John Howard in 2007 as he promised to introduce a carbon trading scheme. Up to half of the party room were prepared to go over the top with Malcolm Turnbull to introduce carbon pricing in Australia, but are now apparently happy to plant trees, pay billions into an incentive scheme for polluters and hope everyone forgets about the whole thing.
Leaders can get away with a lot among those they directly lead, especially if their decisions seem to be part of a consistent pattern.
On the paid parental leave scheme, however, something quite different is happening.
The scheme, which Mr Abbott has taken to two elections now, is cordially despised by much of the Prime Minister's party room. He announced it unilaterally, in 2010, without consulting his frontbench colleagues. Through two election campaigns, his colleagues maintained a polite deference to him on the topic, even though a great many of them can't stand the policy.
They don't like the fact that it's funded by a tax on business, or that it means more money for well-paid city women, or that it doesn't help stay-at-home mothers. They don't like the fact that a Liberal Prime Minister would be the champion of such a plan. And most particularly, they don't like the fact that the Greens broadly approve of such a scheme (doing anything of which the Greens might broadly approve is pretty much a wake-in-fright moment for any self-respecting Coalition senator).
During the PM's absence from Australia this week, various National Party senators have taken the liberty of saying these things publicly. With the Palmer United Party being opposed, and the Greens wanting further changes to the scheme, it looks in danger of sinking altogether, a result in which many of Mr Abbott's colleagues would take quiet delight.
Mr Abbott is absolutely dug-in on the issue. This is a sincere conviction, albeit a rather recently-developed one.
The strange thing is that his arguments for the scheme - while echoing feminist arguments advanced during the 1990s for paid parental leave - garner next to no support from PPL's traditional backers. Mr Abbott argues that parental leave should be a workplace entitlement, not welfare. It's not a bad argument, and he prosecutes it rather well. But he collects little credit for it, and apart from Eva Cox there have been few feminists prepared publicly to back the Prime Minister in.
This is the funny thing about adopting positions that don't strictly make sense in the context of the rest of your views. Your colleagues don't like it, and your opponents don't believe it.
A very similar thing happened to Julia Gillard when she declared herself to be opposed to gay marriage. Much like the current Prime Minister, she was motivated by a genuine personal opinion. And like the current Prime Minister, she received neither full acceptance from her colleagues nor credit from her natural opponents, even those who agreed with the policy position.
It's all part of the strange chemistry of politics; why some things cause trouble, and others don't. This Government promised to be a "no surprises" outfit. How interesting that its Prime Minister should be struggling so much with the significant new policy that - having been promised loudly and openly for four whole years - is not a surprise at all.
Annabel Crabb is the ABC's chief online political writer. View her full profile here.
Why Abbott is getting grief on paid parental leave - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
