Peta Credlin: Today’s Liberal Party has much to thank Abbott for

Tony Abbott might only have had two years at the top, but there would never have been Morrison or Turnbull governments if he hadn’t got the Liberals back in to begin with, writes Peta Credlin.

On the same day that the Labor Party released its review into why they lost the unlosable election and started the soul-searching, the Liberal Party held a function to honour former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, and might just have found theirs.

Sir Robert Menzies aside, and John Howard too, but only really in recent times, the right side of politics has always been eclipsed by the Left with its creation of heroes and history.

It’s one of the reasons, sadly, why Labor has so often set the tone for Australia’s political narrative, even though, in modern times, it’s been the Liberal Party that more often than not, that’s held power.

As conservatives, we often think, wrongly, that people will just remember the truth, but that’s hard when Labor does its level best to write and rewrite history, so that with the passage of time, it’s their version of events that stands uncontested, and the many achievements of the Liberal movement go missing.

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On Thursday night, over 1100 people, with a waiting list of 400 plus, and plenty of Liberal heavyweights, turned up at the biggest Liberal gathering in years to honour Australia’s 28th prime minister and his family.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott was honoured this week. Picture: AAP/Bianca De Marchi

Abbott might only have had two years at the top, but there would never have been a Morrison government – or indeed a Turnbull one – if Abbott hadn’t got the Liberals back into government in record time from the wilderness of opposition, and given them an electoral buffer to survive the self-inflicted wounds and poor campaigning of 2016.

Abbott is widely acknowledged as a superb opposition leader, even, begrudgingly, by the professional Abbott haters but at the dinner, he was celebrated as a fine prime minister too, whose time at the top was prematurely and unfairly cut short.

Time has exposed Abbott’s successor for what he was, and his epitaph, at least in the eyes of the Liberal Party base, will be the manner in which he departed office, and his behaviour and that of his son, during the Wentworth by-election.

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By contrast, that same Liberal Party base turned out in great number to honour Tony Abbott’s life of service, his six years as party leader, and his achievements in office as a true son of the Liberal movement.

And significant achievements they were: Stopping the illegal immigrant boats that no other country has done, then or since; scrapping unjust and counter-productive taxes – by getting rid of the carbon tax and the mining tax; the “big three” trade deals – China, Japan and Korea – representing 50 per cent of Australia’s overall export trade, deals that had been stuck in interminable negotiations for over 10 years; and an infrastructure boom too, including the Western Sydney airport.

Without Abbott there would be no Morrison. Picture: AAP/Bianca De Marchi

While it’s true the 2014 budget’s big economic reforms were sabotaged in the Senate, it was at least the start of the careful housekeeping that’s seen his successor finally deliver the first surplus in more than a decade.

Abbott was a rare politician of conviction.

You might not always have agreed with him, but he said what he believed and did what he said.

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How many MPs have been prepared, as Abbott was, to volunteer in the local fire brigade and surf club; and to spend serious time in remote Australia rather than just pontificate, on reconciliation?

And when it comes to character, how many MPs today, speak on the record, as Abbott did, rather than leak and brief anonymously?

Having now worked in politics and the media, I make two observations. If politicians spent as much time building up our country as they spend trying to tear each other down – via anonymous sources, or off the record – Australia, would be far better for it.

And if today’s journalists spent the time their predecessors once did, in drilling into the detail of policy and keeping politicians on their toes rather than focused on internal gossip, we would have better outcomes for real people.

Originally published as Peta Credlin: Today’s Liberal Party has much to thank Abbott for