Antinuclear

Katharine Murphy dissects Tony Abbott’s motivation and agenda

Abbott for years had played the role of dysfunctional younger brother of the two Peters: Reith and Costello…….But this new precision Tony was delivering the goods, and being feted for it. The narrowness of the agenda and the breakneck speed of the daily news cycle kept things simple. The formula the firm had honed was paying daily dividends.

Team Abbott could fool themselves that they had actually conquered chaos…….

How will this all end, I asked one of the colleagues last week? “Not well for Tony.

How the Liberal party machine swallowed the real Tony Abbott alive, Guardian Katharine Murphy, deputy political editor, 8 Feb 15 
The Tony Abbott I knew disappeared in 2013 as he sublimated himself to the needs of his party and its backers. Ultimately the strategy backfired..

My last recorded sighting involved Abbott romancing a constituency he thought essential to securing power. Gina Rinehart was there. So was Rupert Murdoch. Abbott obligingly went down on bended knee to secure a private tête-à-tête with the mogul, because why on earth would a multi-time zone eminence like Murdoch stand up to greet a mere politician on the cusp of the prime ministership?

The occasion was the 70th anniversary of the Institute of Public Affairs.

………..

Coal would be good for humanity, and the Coalition would develop the policies to prove it. The deeply suspicious progressivism of carbon pricing would be scrapped, whatever the cost. ($7bn, but who is counting.) Abbott’s signature aggression was to be a targeted weapon, not the manifestation of random acts of pique.

Those were the requirements of the firm………

For Abbott, on the precipice of fulfilling his destiny in politics, it would have seemed like collegiality, not outright soul-selling, to become a man for Peta and for Brian down in party headquarters, a man for the colleagues, a man for theLiberal party base, a man for Rupert and for Alan Jones and for Ray Hadley (when Scott Morrison wasn’t available) – a man who would validate the various irrationalisms of the wireless ranters and the white male columnists in Rupert’s employ – young and older fogeys who cherish past certainties, and who feel just as ambivalent about the future as Abbott himself feels……

Abbott for years had played the role of dysfunctional younger brother of the two Peters: Reith and Costello…….But this new precision Tony was delivering the goods, and being feted for it. The narrowness of the agenda and the breakneck speed of the daily news cycle kept things simple. The formula the firm had honed was paying daily dividends.

Team Abbott could fool themselves that they had actually conquered chaos…….

How will this all end, I asked one of the colleagues last week? “Not well for Tony.”http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/feb/08/how-liberal-party-machine-swallowed-tony-abbott?CMP=share_btn_tw

February 9, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | General News