Abbott’s gone, so where to now?
For many of us the demise of Tony Abbott has seen our wish fulfilled. And it comes with an enormous amount of relief and satisfaction. But his demise also changes the dynamics of the next election, but for now that’s another story.
Tony Abbott has been good for us in one respect and we can thank him for that. The AIMN and countless other sites have thrived on his collection of stupid leadership gaffes and atrocious policies.
Some of us may be feeling a sense of emptiness. Tony Abbott, after all, was our signature dish. It is unlikely we’ll ever have a more inept Prime Minister served up for us.
But our work is not yet done.
As John Kelly rightly reminds us, we may have a new Prime Minister but we still have a failed government. And we will carry on fighting this government.
And on the other side of the political divide Jennifer Wilson points out – what many have been silently thinking – that Bill Shorten might not be the best person to take on Malcolm Turnbull. And we will carry on agitating for a better opposition.
And are we happy with the new Prime Minister? Certainly not when he simply carries on with his predecessor’s ineffective policies. Take climate change, for example. Kaye Lee reminds us that:
So far, Malcolm Turnbull has said there will be no change to the Coalition’s climate change policy. He needs to rethink that.
Yes, he does. And we will be arguing the case why he does.
And elsewhere, Van Badham over at The Guardian warns us that Turnbull will still be ruling ‘from and for the big end of town’. Wasn’t Abbott also doing that? Wasn’t that what we were also fighting against? Looks like nothing changes for us in that regards.
Any emptiness we might have felt with the demise of Tony Abbott will quickly be filled while we are still faced with the horror legacies he left us.
Abbott’s gone, so where to now? Answer: we keep heading in the same direction. We at The AIMN will be.
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25 comments
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Emily Davison -
brickbob -
kizhmet -
Kaye Lee -
Michael Taylor -
Emily Davison -
Bronte ALLAN -
tet02 -
king1394 -
kerri -
Blinkyewok -
mars08 -
Emily Davison -
Captain Midnight -
Emily Davison -
Ross in Gippsalnd -
Mike LaFave -
Kaye Lee -
TurnLeft2016 -
Vicki -
Wayne Turner -
diannaart -
eli nes -
PopsieJ -
Jagger
Return to home pagedemocracy is still on a knifes edge, the 1% will see this as an opportunity to sneak their diabolic agenda through now they have a likeable spokesmodel out the front
the fight goes on, sign me up, count me in, Im lacing up my combat boots, as Gough said maintain the rage and the enthusiasm, too many people forget the second part, not me, Im ready to go
Yes Tony is gone and thats good of course,but i am not in the get rid of Shorten brigade,i think what Shorten needed is a challenge and Abbott was far too easy for him and i think Turnbull will lift Shortens game,because he knows now he cant just cruise to victory on Abbotts incompetence so he has no choice but for him and his team to lift their game and show the voters they are quite capable of giving Turnbull and his awful Government a run for their money.
It would be political suicide for Labor to change leaders now,it would come across to voters that they are in a panic and desperate,people have had a gutfull of parties changing leaders,and i urge all progressives to hold their nerve and back Shorten,otherwise we are no better than the last mob who just knifed their leader.
ps””’ Dont panic””” Dont panic””’ show some intestinal fortitude.”””
An indescribable sense of relief Abbott has gone, that’s what I feel. AIMN’s merry band of journalists, contributors and commentators, are quite right; Abbott may be gone but the policies remain. Whatever his personal preferences may be, Turnbull is not changing the coalition stance on the ETS, SSM, refugeees and asylum seekers etc etc etc. Can’t say I am surprised. How much difference can Turnbull make, how much difference will it make reshuffling the cabinet/front bench? We will find out soon enough.
ALP needs a massive shakeup – desperately. Shorten isn’t up to the challenges, less so now with Turnbull as PM. Who should lead? Should a leadership change be undertaken now while the LNP/Coalition are getting themselves organised?
Whilst I am infinitley more optimistic about the future of Australia, I confess I am not holding my breath for any signficant change of direction from the Libs any time soon.
At least we won’t have to listen to Abbott anymore. That is an unbelievable relief. The repetition, the counting on the fingers, the ers and ahs, the embarrassing gaffes, the lack of in depth knowledge of any policy, the inability to make small talk….and the high vis photo shoots…please can we stop flying around the country for photo shoots with shovels.
As with Howard, someone in the media will keep rolling him out.
unless you pay Abbott, i cant see him being rolled out anywhere
It will be strange for a while not having Tony Abscess to ridicule! Yes we must all remember that we still have a conservative somewhat right wing party in power, but I think at least, that Talkbull is not a flat earth, tea party conservative! We also do not have that Credlin cretin to put up with anymore, damn, another one we used to ridicule, gone! Just hope Talkbull at least tries to govern the Country with a less rigid, right wing, Catholic, anti gay, outlook, & maybe (?) no more lies!
Michael am getting Trojan warning from AVG when I click on AIM view comment in emails, maybe some liberal geek playing hardball
Time will tell, and it will be nice to have a PM who can string an argument together. But I’m afraid he may have his hands full with his disaffected back bench. Abbott’s speech saying that he wasn’t going to be undermining Turnbull only indicates to me that he is already plotting.
As for Shorten and the ALP, if they ever get a decent run in the press and proper examination of their policies, yes there will be competition. So few people seem to have ever chased up Shorten’s speeches; he is a very capable man who can speak well and passionately, even if he sometimes gets a bit pop-eyed and self-conscious about his 3 second grabs
Trying to explain to my 83yo mum that the small good Abbott has done is to awaken Australia politically.
Those who voted Abbott, believed his lies and clearly thought he would be another John Howard! I hope they have learned to turn to broader media sources and the penultimate wisdom of the A.I.M.N.. Shorten suited the electorate before Abbott stirred us all into a rage. The electorate was then lazy and uninformed except by the MSM. The oldies are dying off. Fewer people are totally reliant on TV for voting advice. Incidentally TV continues to destroy it’s position as an informer by blindly reporting whatever the loudest MP says with no examination of facts. Lazy journalism breeds lazy politicians and is swallowed by lazy voters which is what led us to where we are now or were before Monday. Now is a bit different but now we are more on guard.
Has anyone else noticed how Abbotts words were adopted by the journos? He called the ETS a “carbon tax” and they blindly reported it so. He claimed to be whoevers “best friend” and it was reported as “Tony Abbott says he is whoevers best friend” no questioning? No criticism? No analysis? Just word for word copy. In terms of the revolving leadership door, as Michael has rightly pointed out, not our choice, the choice of the party members, but so what? If it takes a while to fine tune our choices for PM then so be it! If the much maligned 24 hour news cycle forces the voters to change their minds then so what? Isn’t it better that we are now paying attention? That some of us are invigorated by a battle we should never have fallen prey to?
And brickbob I completely disagree! If Shorten were kiscked to the kerb and replaced with Albo the approval rating would definitely rise. There are those who still hate Shorten for his union work and see him as more bent than Uri Geller’s spoons.
We need to save our democracy. Where does Turnbull stand on anything! Has he changed his mind and his values just to become PM? He now appears to support govt policies which he has previously criticised. I ask again Where does he stand?
So… you know how ex leaders usually snare a cushy job as a lobbyist or consultant??? What are the chances…
ex pollies usually snare cushy jobs bc they have power, all the friends and networks theyve made during their time in the job, they debating and negotiating skills, their reputation, and high regard theyre held in the party and community….
oh I see your point, where does that leave Abbott
“democracy is still on a knifes edge…”
“We need to save our democracy….”
lol, if voting changed anything, they would outlaw it. Australia is not a democracy, never has been.
yep, and number whatever on the IPA wishlist is voluntary voting
compulsory voting gives 5-7% more votes to the left (Mackerras) so yes, they will try
democracy is more than just voting, its about access to information, an ability to evaluate information, so you can make informed choices
Tone’s has gone to join Bronny on the darkest outer reaches of the backbench, this is a good thing as the mute button on the remote will get less of a hammering from now on. Much more of the inane stopped the boats, carbon tax nonsense and the tv would have been in very real mortal danger.
How a PM could lose so much so quickly will inevitably be the stuff of many a political thesis.
Now we will see if Bill Shorten is the real deal. Up until now Labor didn’t have to raise a sweat to be in an electoral winning position, to go toe to toe with Abbott the brawler would have just played into the government hands.
All Labor did was just sit back, lob in a few well placed hand grenades and watch the fun of government polling going south like an antarctic polar expedition
The only change so far is the salesman. Remember it’s still the same LNP. As some wag noted, a new paint brush for the same old tin of purple gloss ceiling paint.
Having gotten his opposite number out Bill has to now go into bat, take guard centre to centre and flay the LNP all over the park, if he can bat.
Kaye Lee @ 2:05 pm,
Tip of my hat to you for having succinctly crystallized my reaction to Tony Abbott’s removal (“with extreme prejudice”, as expressed in Coppola’s ‘Apocalypse Now’). Abbott’s adolescent sulkiness since losing the ballot has been consistent with his entire sociopathic political career.
I don’t really know how I feel anymore. It’s like I am pregnant and have had a bad test result and have to wait for the birth to see if everything is ok.
I really wish he hadn’t picked Direct Action as the first thing to defend without at least some bone to sane people like a cap and trade scheme.
but who is Turnbull trying to win with that one? greens voters, alp voters?
Turnbull cant switch enough from ALP / Grn to save the LNP seats lost at the switch from Abbott to Turnbull, he has to appeal to conservative RWNJs in the LNP, both voters and back benchers, his appeal is to convince them hes their saviour
knifing a first term PM is only hard the first time, the second one is easier
So what has really changed? Well a lot really. Turnbull worked for Goldman Sachs. If you stop and think about this for a minute we should all be very wary of a Prime Minister who batted for a big cabal bank now running a captive, geographically isolated population. What is the agenda and has it played out exactly how the cabal wanted it to? It will be interesting to see what restrictive reforms will be introduced by the shadow government and how Turnbull will embrace their agenda. Poor Tony, I don’t think even the elite knew what to do with him. All is not as it seems, and it is not as easy as just ousting a sitting PM. Watch this space.
Welcome PM Mal Abbott – A better speaker and a lot more intelligent (NOT hard) than Tony Abbott.But the same crap terrible policies.Aka the same rubbish,from the terrible Libs.
I agree with many others in feeling a lightness of being without the cringe factor of Abbott blurting into my reality.
I can at least, listen to Turnbull, don’t trust him further than I can toss a ute, but at least I can listen and won’t feel embarrassed (surely not) when Turnbull is lit large under the global spotlight.
Labor has Robb and his free for the chinese but not for us. Imagine being under 25 seasonal worker 3 months work six months nothing. Beauty Kaye he was the most painful speaker.
my mcgonagall effort.
you never knew or understood your worth to me
what came out of your mind settled into
screaming lies twisted straight
I feel your pain from a media obsessed with PM sooking
imbued by a mendacious opposition leader’s spruiking
editorially ignoring your amoral affliction and slogan infection
the new infantata, a convert, a real rhodes with solid copper lies
what am I to write, where am I to seek where no private school applies
can my ears ever catch a ‘suppository’ of ‘women doing their ironing piles’
breaking news not all is lost we still have baird, barnet and giles.
hate to be crude but what you are all saying in good old fashioned basic earthy terms is ” same old shit, different arseholes”
Morrison has only one hurdle to jump now for the PMs job, Turnball will be easier to usurp than Abbott.