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The Tony Abbott Error … Or Was It Era?

This week I’ve heard some strange things.

Stranger even than that photo of Christopher Pyne wearing an Akubra.

Well, we had Turnbull’s stellar performance on the ABC, and by stellar, of course, I mean that he wasn’t really on the same planet as most of us. Or indeed, any planet.

While he assured us that Labor’s removal of negative gearing was going to send prices down, down, down, (I wonder if Coles will give me a little sling for that!) I noted the next day some unbiased observer from the Property Council wrote an article dispelling the myths about negative gearing. One of these myths was that it causes higher property prices. Now think about that for a moment. It doesn’t force prices up, but removing it will force prices down.

Mm…

But there was more to come when Peter Dutton and our stand-in PM, Malcolm Stumbull assured us that the decision by the High Court in New Guineau declaring the Manus Island detention centre illegal was not unexpected. Apparently, they’ve been anticipating this since Christmas and are ready. They have a list of talking points with words and phrases like “not get misty eyed” and “detention centre in Manus which was set up by Labor” and “never be settled in Australia” and “advertising point for people smugglers”.

Of course, when asked what they were going to do about the people on Manus Island now that the decision had been made, they replied that they hadn’t had time to develop a “definitive road map”, not only because these people hadn’t come by road, but because the government was too busy working out what to say when the High Court announced their ruling! But taken by surprise, not at all.

However, the corker of the week has to Andrew Bolt’s interview of Tony Abbott.

At one point in this interview, Tony refers to the “Abbott era” which I misheard as the “Abbott error” because I was listening to the interview on my iPad while the TV was on in the background. Sadly, this was not a moment of realisation for the poor deluded man, but then he told us that removing the debt ceiling was one of his biggest mistakes adding:

“If the debt ceiling had remained in place Labor and the Greens would have been forced to look at this problem of excessive government spending and this remains one of the fundamental challenges for governments.”

Yep, he never seemed to understand that he wasn’t in government when he wasn’t PM, and he certainly never understood that he was actually the person responsible when he was.

Whatever, the strangest thing about the interview for me was the way he smiled. It could lead one to speculate that he believes that he pretty much has the numbers to launch a coup after the election, even if Turnbull wins. Of course that’d be ridiculous. Why wouldn’t the Liberals stick with someone as decisive as Turnbull? Just look at the way he’s dealing with the High Court ruling on Manus. Look at the decisive way he’s put tax reforms on and off the table within a couple of days. As he said to Leigh Sales the other night:

“But let me – Leigh, let me just – this is a matter of common sense… Now if you take – if the market – the residential property market is soft now and it is declining in many cities and in Perth.”

How could the Liberals replace a man with such eloquence, such a grasp of common sense, such je ne sais que pas?

Yes, Abbott must have just been grinning because he’s happy that he’s no longer expected to do anything except look after the people in his electorate by making more overseas trips in the past six months than Julie Bishop.

 

21 comments

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  1. John Kelly

    Did he say, ‘dead, buried and cremated’?

  2. brickbob

    Yes i watched that interview or as i call it a love fest,i did’nt know who was more cringeworthy,Bolt trying to pretend he was asking hard tough questions of his good friend or Abbott trying to keep a straight face ptetending he was part of a genuine interview session.

    Of course he is going for the top job again,that’s what this is all about,whether Turnbull just scraps in or he loses, Abbott will be in like a rat up a drainpipe.””””””

  3. Bronte ALLAN

    Sorry, but when ever I see Tony Abscess smiling, he reminds me of the “mad” Jack Nicholson in “The Shining”! When I hear Malcolm Talkbull trying to speak on almost any subject, he also reminds me of that “other” so-called “politician”–Tony Abscess! It does seem that neither of them can put a “sensible” answer together. God help us if Talkbull gets into power again & more than God help us if bloody Abscess were to again take the reins!

  4. Möbius Ecko

    Abbott also said something along the lines that he achieved great things and history will record his was a good government.

    I don’t for a second believe he believes this. He’s trying to rewrite history again and knowingly lying as he has all his life.

  5. paul walter

    Terrible, you know. He’s only been “gone” about six months, apart from cranky rumblings from the backbench.

    But with Turnbull there, I almost yearn for his return- at least you could hear Abbott coming.

  6. keerti

    I reckon it will be pyneful or morrison who’ll try for malpractises job. Abjtt iz on the mose in his own electoratr

  7. Carol Taylor

    Keerti, my guess is that Morrison will be gone with his first budget. Wouldn’t it be strange if J. Bishop becomes leader, she’s been treading both sides of the factions and quite neatly for some time now…and noticeably absent during the Turnbull/Morrison stuff ups.

  8. bobrafto

    read some of the interview somewhere and Abbott said the French have a ‘blood debt’ to us??????

    And along this line, Bolt to Abbott ‘would you have a French or a Japanese sailor in the trenches with you fighting the Chinese?

    yea, let’s have some sailors in the trenches.

    According to Bolt, the French can’t be trusted for an event that happened in 1939 but the Japs can be trusted even though they wanted to invade us.

    And one wonders of the deals done to give the Japs the sub deal that has Bolt and Abbott casting aspersions on the French.

    One also wonders if we can’t get enough crew to man the 6 Collins subs, how the fcuk are we gonna get crew for 12 subs, maybe 457 visas.

  9. Rossleigh

    Maybe they’ll be crewed by an international crew of Japanese and Germans – that’ll fix the French for their lack of support in WW2

  10. Salstarat

    The real problem with political jokes is that they just keep getting elected and, let’s face it, Abbott was the biggest, sickest joke of all! If they had an Olympic Games for Morons, Phony Baloney Tony would take the Gold, Silver and Bronze Medals in every event. Abbottomy remains the Father and Mother of all LIARS, the Emperor of Embarrassment, the King of Corruption and the Master of Mediocrity. Abbott is such a breathtaking megalomaniacal narcissist and so out of touch with the scorn and contempt he is held by millions of people around the world, he remains a legend in his own tiny mind. Abbott’s staggering delusion of grandeur keeps him diagonally parked in a parallel universe. It seems evident that he believes he should receive the “Keys to the City” again … however, the overwhelming majority believe it is now time to change the locks!

  11. Peter F

    Keep in mind how successful six partially manned collins class submarines have been in defending us all these years. How did you think all those invading vessels sank at sea? Wont it be wonderful when we get the re-election class subs,

  12. Gangey1959

    I thought the lnp mantra was “we stopped the boats”.
    What’s going to happen in a few years time when they are ready for delivery?
    All that money for nuthin’ except 2 more boatloads of refugees.

  13. June M Bullivant OAM

    Are these people vaccinated with a virus when they take office, or were they like that before.

  14. Deanna Jones

    Gangey, Dutton has now resumed the “boats” mantra. We can’t possibly have NZ humanely settle our Manus refugee and asylum seekers because it will mean the boats start coming back.

  15. lawrencewinder

    That “Blot-on-the-Landscape” Bolt is taken seriously by some , that “Rabid-the-Hun” ever became PM and that Pyne the Whyne and “Vichy” Abetz plus all the others really exist is so, so surreal. This is what the last days of the Roman empire must have looked a bit like. This most Catholic of a front bench whose total absence of morals and ethics are embarrassing to atheists and whose economic “smarts” have been taken from the parallel universe inhabited by the juvenile libertarians of the IPA, where the only “skill’ they excel at is rorting …..or is the scene more akin to that in Hitler’s bunker in May ’45? What a bloody mess they are creating.

  16. Pappinbarra Fox

    Deana and yet Do Nuttin Duttin says it is PNGs problem so if PNG do a deal with NZ it is none of Australia’s business. OTOH if I were Peter O’Neill I’ d charter a couple of jumbos and fly the refugees to Cairns. They would not be illegal then because they didn’t come by boat.

  17. Rob Arpanet

    Regards Abbott : Australia gets the political leaders it deserves…from the pandering and weak willed Minister of Election Benefits and Bonuses Johnny Howard to the Mad Monk (Minister of Paranoia, Toadying and Imagined Slights) himself. Turnbulls only fault is to have earned (not be born with) a silver spoon. But in the faux egalitarian society that is the modern Straya this is a more heinous cultural crime than wife beating or paedophilia. The LNP has been a breeding ground of pandering, vacillatory, sly, venal, dishonest and duplicitous political cockroaches with opaque agendas for decades now. If it was a home it would be condemned, torn down and rebuilt. Not that the bumbling menagerie of unionists, otherwise unemployable tertiary graduates with arts degrees and socially damaged and overly strident minority spokesthings that the LNP has been in recent years is much of an alternate choice – but at least the electorate can get some sense of policy clarity when the ALP sit to the right of the Speaker.

  18. you can't be serious

    Well its certain then, that Mr “the Abbott era is over and will not come again, I will act as an elder statesman of the Party ” Abbott, will challenge for the leadership. He usually does the opposite of what he says.

  19. Jack Russell

    Thank goodness we Aussies really ARE an innovative lot. The official thesaurus entries were exhausted long ago, but we still keep coming with pinpointedly accurate descriptors for these creatures. Well done all of you who post to the comment sections! : )))

  20. Kronomex

    Pyne, to me at the very least, is a certifiable nut case.

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