By ABC's Barrie Cassidy Friday 26 June 2015

Photo: If there's a poll boost soon then expect leadership speculation to give way to election speculation. (AAP: Mick Tsikas)

Government backbenchers will head into the winter break pleased they have the old Tony Abbott back - and at the top of his game, writes Barrie Cassidy.

The Abbott Government has ended the Autumn session of parliament strongly, on the offensive over the economy and under attack only on issues that it is comfortable with in any case.

The budget topped and tailed the session with the small business initiative the centrepiece. The sudden - and cynical - transition from austerity to stimulus was too dramatic for some, and in the end the strategy allowed the Government to do no better than hold the line in the polls, still trailing on average 47.5 per cent to 52.5 per cent two party preferred. However, that's not an unusual outcome even for well received budgets. And the Government now has a key talking point around economic management and consumer confidence.

Beyond that, a series of deals with the Greens (on changing the assets test on pensions) and Labor (on the fuel excise, the small business stimulus, terrorism and offshore processing) created a last minute climate of consensus politics missing until now; though it was a brand of bipartisanship peculiar to Australia.

The Government accepted Labor's support on terrorism laws with all the ingratitude it could muster.

Had the moderates in the Liberal Party not watered down the laws, Labor faced an excruciating decision on whether or not to oppose them.

Had they gone with the original version to avoid a concerted attack from the Government for being "soft on terrorism" they would nevertheless have shed a power of votes to the Greens.

It was at times a bumpy road for the Prime Minister too, with the initial discussions sent off the rails by internal dissent, cabinet leaks and even a distraction over removing the GST on tampons.

In the end, the outcome was unambiguously positive for the Government, and it gives them another powerful talking point. The process was tarnished because at times the Prime Minister seemed intent on manufacturing a split with his opponent; his intemperate suggestion that they had "rolled out the red carpet to terrorists" a case in point. But as he said when referring to another topic - the leaked education reforms - "what matters here is not what goes into the process but what comes out of the process".

Even the deal with Labor on the fuel excise was tinged with political point scoring.

Labor's shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, said : "This is not an easy decision for the Labor Party. We know of course that this is a decision that some people will be unhappy about. But we are happy to make difficult decisions not unfair decisions."

To that, the Treasurer, Joe Hockey said: "The Labor Party has been mugged by reality. They're being mugged by the reality that the budget needs to be repaired and they've got to help us to fix the mess that they created."

That's as close to a joint ticket as we're likely to get these days.

Labor for its part has been distracted by the allegations against Bill Shorten that go back to his time as a union leader. His appearance on Insiders settled down the issue in the short term but the fraught process of giving evidence before a Royal Commission is still ahead of him.

More damaging - to this point - was the extraordinarily candid performances on The Killing Season. Had that program not happened, those events would have been more distant and far less dramatic. Not anymore.

And in the end it caught Shorten for lying about his involvement; though that is mitigated because (a) he admitted his mistake and (b) they all lie, on all sides, about everything to do with leadership speculation.

The program hurt Labor, immeasurably. For Abbott, it was a double edged sword. He would have enjoyed Labor's discomfort, and the irony behind the narrative; that cutting down a prime minister in his or her first term can be damaging for years to come.

But in the process the audience was reminded of a couple of nasty moments in his own background when he addressed the "ditch the witch" rally, and said of the Gillard government that it should have "died of shame", just days after Alan Jones had said Gillard's father "died of shame".

Perhaps though the most perverse aspect of the Autumn session was how the allegations that the Government paid people smugglers probably worked in its favour. It forced Labor to go on the attack over asylum seekers, even though the two policies are in lock step. The mere raising of the issue seemed to delight the Government. They couldn't be happier than when they are being attacked over asylum seekers or "draconian" anti-terrorism laws.

It's a bit like the debate around Q&A. Jonathan Green in his superb article on the subject on The Drum writes of the Government's "red cheeked, blustering outrage".

Yet a caller to ABC 774 in Melbourne on Wednesday probably reflected a widespread view when he said: "That guy the other night ... I was a little bit undecided if we needed that legislation. We definitely do."

So the Government backbenchers will leave for their electorates pleased they have the old Tony Abbott back - and at the top of his game. The furious attacks on the ABC - accusing the organisation of betrayal and demanding that "heads should roll" - is just further red meat to the right. And keep in mind, at the height of the spill motion in February, alarmingly, he was starting to lose the support of some of the most rusted on conservatives.

Whether any of this leads to a boost in the polls won't be known for a few weeks. The "vibe" as they say, suggests that it will.

And if it does, then leadership speculation will quickly give way to election speculation.

Barrie Cassidy is the presenter of the ABC program Insiders. He writes a weekly column for The Drum.

The old Tony Abbott is back - and going strong - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)