Abbott A Boy

Had a bit of a think about the Liberal leadership. Found out some interesting things. Here are some points.

Tony Abbott is a pretty good choice as leader.
- He's battle hardened. He was always on Lateline, Q&A, Sunday, AM, Insiders etc etc when the Libs were in Government, being asked the tough and curly questions. He knows how to defend and he definitely knows how to attack.
- He's smart. Whatever anyone thinks of his personal morals/opinions, they cannot deny his intelligence.
- He's a fighter. Literally. He was a boxer at Oxford.
- He strongly, strongly believes in the values of the Liberal Party. This is an asset. Because to unite a party, they have to believe you have an idea of where you want to go. Malcom Turnbull didn't believe strongly enough. And the rank and file didn't believe in him.
- He's shown himself to be tactically superior to Turnbull already. Once by showing up as a surprise candidate for the leadership and winning, and secondly by attacking the Emissions Trading Scheme as a huge tax and seeing the poll bounce because of that.

That said, he probably won't win the next election.
- Kevin Rudd isn't doing badly at all, and there is a long time (politically speaking) before the election. Australian elections are weighted in the incumbent's favour.
- I don't think Australia is ready to bring the Liberals back without some more generational change in the upper echelons.
- Rudd is a bureacrat but he's not stupid. He will find a way to 'tackle' climate change that doesn't involve a poorly-understood ETS.

Still, Abbott felt he had to do something.
- The Liberal Party is the one he loved, has grown up in, and been a huge part of. It was in the hands of a man who seemed to be betraying the very ideals the Liberal Party was founded on - namely, small government and low taxes. Regardless of whether Abbott wanted to be leader, whether he thought he could win the next election, it was a matter of principle for him that Turnbull not be leader. He was taking the Party away from its core beliefs.
- The decision has been justified, with two by-election wins in Brendan Nelson and Peter Costello's old seats, and a bounce in the polls following his decision to reject the ETS.

The ETS was Turnbull's idea
- Malcolm Turnbull was Environment Minister under John Howard, and his department developed the ETS model. Turnbull, a trader by profession, loved the idea of a carbon trading market.
- The idea is poorly understood outside Turnbull's office.
- Given that, it's no wonder he was going to vote for it as Liberal leader. It was his policy!

John Howard should shoulder some blame for the mess in the Liberal Party
- Even though he will go down as one of the Australia's more influential Prime Ministers Howard screwed up the Liberal succession plan. There was none.
- Perhaps he believed Costello would step up once he left. Perhaps he truly believed he would beat Rudd (not as unlikely at the time as it seems now). Perhaps he wanted the party to fall apart with him as some kind of monument to his greatness (ie, he was the only one holding it together).
- Regardless, Howard should have groomed a real successor and his failure to do that has given the party three leaders since the 2007 election.

A combination of climate change polices would be better than one over-reaching one
- We need encouragement for renewable energy, encouragement for decreasing reliance on coal, and some level of punishment for failing to meet targets. But as I've argued before quite a few times, positive policies are better than negative policies. They require more creativity, but the benefits are huge.

Kevin Rudd really needs to stop following Obama around
- It's cringeworthy. Please Kevin. Please. Stop it. If you don't know what I'm talking about, they're both attending the climate change conference in Copenhagen. Kev planned to be there at the end when Obama was. Obama changed plans to be there for the opening. Kev announced he would be there for the opening too. THEN Obama changed back to his original plan, and will be there for the end of the conference. Yesterday, Kevin changed his plans and decided he will be there for the end of the conference after all.
- It hurts.

The next election is going to be fun
- Can't you just feel it? Abbott out there, throwing punches, two sides completely disagreeing on a major issue, Rudd doing his Rudd thing, Barnaby Joyce piping in with some jokes and hilarious comments on the side...
- Seriously, it's going to be fun. Probably more fun than the Tasmanian state election, but I won't talk about that, just in case.

Hope you all didn't mind a return to some politics for a post!