Requiem for a Lightweight. The end of Tony Abbott

There is probably no Australian Prime minister except for Billy Hughes and William McMahon whose passing will be less mourned than Tony Abbott.

Someone on Facebook commented that Abbott “Should never have been Prime Minister” and in a sense that’s true. Abbott’s rise to the position was more or less accidental.

Abbott’s ascendancy was due in the first place to a blunder by the Liberals during the Howard years: they assumed that when it came time for Howard to retire, Peter Costello would automatically step up as leader. When Costello declined, they found themselves without a backup plan. At that stage Turnbull was a potential leader but as yet he was too new and too Left for most of the party.

The second mistake the Liberals made was to assume that Howard’s electoral success was due to his being a moral conservative therefore, they reasoned, falsely, they needed a successor who was also a moral conservative. What they failed to realise was that Howard was a successful despite being a moral conservative not because of it. Unlike Howard, Abbott did not have the political talent to offset his somewhat rigid personal views with good government.

The third factor which led to Abbott’s success was the lamentable performance of the Rudd/Gillard/Government – a gift to any Opposition. Rudd, had he remained PM for a full term would have had no trouble dealing with Abbott but his abrasive personal style led him to be replaced by the hapless, clueless, Julia Gillard. To quote the bitter Bill Hayden in 1983 “a drover’s dog could have won the election” against Gillard. As it was, Abbott only outpolled Gillard marginally in 2010 (remember that the Coalition won more seats in that election: Gillard only became PM because Oakeshott and Windsor betrayed their electorates and backed her.)  Then, of course, the last minute deposing of Gillard and re-installation of Rudd made the 2013 election a walkover for the Coalition. Abbott’s becoming PM was the thus result of incompetence by both the Liberals and Labor.

Of course, people who don’t look very Prime Ministerial at the outset can grow into the role. Howard was regarded very much as a joke throughout the Eighties but became one of Australia’s most successful Prime Ministers. Not so with Abbott.

Abbott, without intending to be, was a divisive Prime Minister managing to achieve the almost impossible task of having more people hate him than Howard. Most Abbott haters attribute their animosity to his policies and what they perceived as a raft of personal prejudices. Neither of those factors however really fully explain the antipathy.

Firstly, Abbott’s policies, such as “stopping the boats” were not materially different in their intention (and actually more humane) than Labor’s Malaysian and PNG Solutions which were devised for the same reason – to stop people-smuggling. The perception of a personal traits such a homophobia and misogyny was also, if not completely false, exaggerated. The misogyny label in particular was just a slur created by Gillard desperately grasping for something to cloak her own disastrous performance. Anger over Abbott’s reluctance to legislate for marriage equality also ignores the fact that Gillard refused to legalise gay marriage though she had the numbers to do so. The explanation in both cases is the same: Abbott and Gillard were both afraid of the conservative elements of their parties.
 

I believe the antipathy to Abbott stems from problems that are both deeper and more superficial than policies and attitudes. Firstly, the superficial.

Abbott, without a doubt, had/has the worst speaking style of any Prime Minister ever recorded in Australia. William McMahon was derided for his squeaky voice which became shrill when he became agitated but even he sounded relatively normal compared to Abbott’s odd one-word-at–a-time speech pattern. Prior to become Prime Minister Abbott had a habit of grunting between each word:  “I – ugh – don’t – ugh –think – ugh –we – ugh –should – ugh –consider – ugh –action – ugh –of – ugh –that – ugh –nature – ugh – “ etc. As PM, he managed to remove the grunt but was still incapable of delivering an English sentence in one breath. He continued to speak one word at a time with tiny pauses between. I. Want. To. Assure. Australians. That. We. Will. Continue. To. etc.

This style of speaking is hard to listen to and disconcerting to the listener. It gives the impression the speaker is actually thinking about each word as they speak, rather than having a sentence already prepared in their brain . It suggests they have trouble formulating their thoughts, are unsure of what they’re saying and lack conviction. What is particularly odd is that, from all reports, Abbott doesn’t talk like this in private, meaning that for some unknown reason he adopts an oddly formal approach when speaking as a politician, not unlike the tone you might adopt when talking to someone who doesn't understand English, or is deaf. This not only comes across as condescending, but also makes the voters feel as if they're never seeing the real person.

The first thing that was refreshing about the election of Malcolm Turnbull was to hear a Prime Minister who speaks fluently and confidently as if he were engaged in a normal conversation.

In addition to the odd, halting, speech, there are the problems of Abbott’s walk, in which he rolls his shoulders like a punch-drunk prize fighter, a scarily reptilian smile and a strange, mechanical, almost robotic laugh that is actually unnerving.

Much as we might disapprove, it is an inescapable fact that appearances count in modern politics. Speaking styles, body language and facial expressions very much determine how people respond to political candidates and leaders. A single idiosyncrasy can be acceptable, even endearing, but Abbott’s combination of vocal, facial and bodily oddities simply made him uncomfortable to watch or listen to. It was unnatural, unrelaxed and often, as in his long silent stare, just weird. 

The deeper, matter concerns the erratic quality of his decision making. Personally I support restoring the old Knights and Dames honours system because I think Australia’s honours system is an embarrassment. Contrary to the protests of the republicans, knights have nothing to do with monarchy per se. There is no reason why you can’t have a republican knight: the term simply means a hero of the realm. The term Dame is more problematic in being gendered and having nothing like the same heroic connotations. If we hate the idea of titles like “Sir” and “Dame” we should also abolish “Dr”, “Mr” and “Professor” – but I digress. The point is I was happy to see the honours system restored. So what does Abbott do? He grants a knighthood to a duke – a duke being already six rungs above a knight in heraldic order. And not just your common or garden duke but a royal consort who has the rank of Prince. It was an act so unjustified, so ill-advised, so destructive to his own cause as to almost cast doubts on Abbott’s sanity.

Lastly there is the issue of the togs. Laced through his whole career there is Abbott’s obsession with sports and fitness. While his involvement in sports was initially seen as a positive – attesting to his youth, energy and simpatico with the outdoorsy Australian culture - there are serious questions about whether a person should still be running triathlons once they’ve become Prime Minister. For a start, most voters would be justified in asking how he had the time? Isn’t being PM pretty much a 20 hour a day job.  While we accept John Howard going out for his brisk morning walk prior to tackling the day’s agenda, continued involvement in strenuous sport seems to suggest that the individual has not fully committed to the demands of office.

On top of this, if you are a politician who is always drawn by cartoonists wearing Speedos, and lampooned for always being on a bike or a surfboard, when you are criticised for being too much of a jock, a bloke, and a man’s man - maybe it’s time to cut back on those activities. Abbott’s refusal to change his image a little – to appear less of a sportsman and a little more cultured, cerebral and sensitive – could be seen as a kind of integrity, a refusal to compromise oneself just for the sake of image but with Abbott I doubt that is the case. It was not an expression of integrity: just a kind of dumbness. Abbott simply didn’t get it.

Abbott will be remembered as a strange, slightly socially inept man, uncertain about his masculinity and even his identity, who found himself Prime Minister by default, never really understanding the social and economic challenges of the 21^st century, too reliant on support from the conservative wing of his party and simply not having the breadth of vision and combination of intellectual and pragmatic skills that make for a statesman.