Rowan Dean: Why axing Abbott was a big mistake

SINCE being dumped, Tony Abbott has shown a willingness to own up to, and an eagerness to correct, his errors, says Rowan Dean.

THE reason some Liberals and journalists insist that Tony Abbott can’t come back is not because they think he’d be no good, but because they can’t bear to admit they were wrong.

Wrong that Malcolm Turnbull would be a better prime minister than Abbott. He isn’t. Wrong that Turnbull would win more seats than Abbott would have at the last election. He didn’t. Wrong to stoop as low as Labor and tear down their own leader. Wrong to freak out Liberal “bed-wetters” by exaggerating Abbott’s weaknesses and playing down his strengths.

Onions and knighthoods are trivial; stopping boats, cutting expenditure and fighting Islamism are not. Wrong to denigrate Abbott’s chief of staff Peta Credlin. Most CEOs would give their right hand for such talent. Wrong to buy the line that Turnbull has an economic narrative to sell. He doesn’t.

So instead of admitting they were wrong on all these fronts, and admitting that Abbott should have had their full support to complete his first term, including making the inevitable mistakes a new PM makes, they compound their initial error by refusing to countenance his return.

They are wrong again.

Abbott was made PM by the Australian public in 2013 in a landslide ­because he was viewed, rightly, as the only leader at the time capable of ­securing our borders. Which he did. Is there another scenario where Abbott might be the only leader capable of taking firm action?

Although Turnbull has kept the boats stopped, is starting to make the right noises on Islamic terrorism, and appears to be prepared to tackle MPs’ expenses, there is one issue where he and his team have made a colossal blunder. And that’s on climate change and our relationship with the White House.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott. Picture: AAP

The election of Donald Trump blindsided Team Turnbull. They were so cocksure about a Clinton win that in September when Malcolm made his grand entrance at the United Nations in New York, he didn’t even bother to make contact with Trump, the Republican nominee for the White House. Big mistake.

Then, displaying the most breathtaking arrogance, within a few hours of Trump’s victory, Turnbull and Julie Bishop ratified the Paris Agreement on renewable energy targets. An even bigger mistake. This is the idiotic Obama-sponsored climate change deal that Trump has said he will “tear up” because it threatens US economic prosperity. And ours.

Turnbull’s chief scientist Alan Finkel admits we will never meet the Paris targets without a significant economic impact. He wants an emissions scheme. Better just to scrap the targets.

Otherwise, as ideological basket-cases like South Australia and Victoria blow up their own coal power stations, taxpayers and businesses can look forward to a bleak future of unreliable electricity and skyrocketing bills. Increasingly, the elderly and poor won’t be able to afford airconditioning or heating; and shops and pharmacies will be chucking out hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of goods every blackout. In just one blackout, SA businesses lost $367 million. So much for “jobs and growth”!

The public will not quickly forgive those Labor premiers who have wantonly vandalised our cheap energy.

If Trump does tear up the Paris Agreement, 2017 will be the year the climate con ends.

Artwork: John Tiedemann

The alternative is: are you prepared to see everyday Australians pay much higher electricity bills than they need to for no tangible environmental benefit?

Those politicians who are honest about climate change admit there is nothing Australia can do to reduce global emissions in any meaningful way. Will conservative Liberals happily sit by while One Nation steals their seats by telling this truth?

At some point, we are going to have to dramatically change direction on renewable energy policy; abandon the Paris targets and focus on making our economy grow through every means possible, particularly using what has always been our natural advantage: cheap coal.

Although Turnbull says he wants reliable, affordable energy, is he prepared to put his money where his mouth is and tear up the Paris Agreement? If Trump does, and Turnbull refuses to, we will deliberately be impoverishing ourselves while America gets richer. That way lies madness. And the end of Turnbull’s leadership.

Abbott certainly made mistakes in his first term, and pandering to climate change activism was among them. But since being dumped, he has shown a willingness to own up to, and an eagerness to correct, those errors.

Battling away on the backbench, Abbott is looking more in touch with the public than ever. From ditching 18C to defunding Palestinian aid to a free trade deal with Britain, Tony ­Abbott is sounding more like a true conservative leader.

When Australia is finally forced to abandon the climate change/ renewables farce, being the prime minister who scrapped the carbon tax will look pretty good on your leadership CV.

Rowan Dean’s Way Beyond Satire, www.wilkinsonpublishing.com.au

SHUT DOWN PREACHERS OF HATE

THE government is thinking about some fancy new ­department, akin to the Homeland Security in the US, or the Home Office in the UK, to co-ordinate all our counter-terrorism efforts.

“We do have a review of the Australian intelligence community under way,” Mr Turnbull said, but won’t “get into a discussion about government structures.”

Fair enough. But you can’t help thinking this may end up being another bout of plonking ideas “on and off the table” for several months, as our PM is wont to do, before deciding to leave everything exactly as it was. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.

But the real question is not what the structure of any new outfit is, but what are its guiding principles?

Until the government gets serious about shutting down those Wahhabi and Salafist Muslim organisations preaching intolerance and hellbent on replacing our wicked, democratic lifestyle with their medieval desert laws, the radicalisation of young Muslims and converts is likely to ­continue.

No matter how big the new ministry is, or what it’s called

LYING DOWN FOR ROOT CAUSE

YOU’VE got to hand it to the German Greens. They’re way ahead of our miserable mob.

They’ve just come up with a cracker of an idea that’s bound to attract a whole new raft of supporters at the upcoming German elections.

According to Elisabeth Scharfenberg, their healthcare spokesthingy, if you’re not getting enough sex, or are too poor to pay for sex, then the German government will pay for a prostitute for you.

“I can imagine a public financing of sexual assistance,” Ms Scharfenberg said in the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

Why don’t Sarah Hanson-Young and Lee Rhiannon come up with ideas like this instead of their dreary Marxist nonsense and endless banging on about Nauru?

Apparently, Ms Scharfenberg’s plan is that when you’re feeling a bit toey, pop on down to your bulk-billing Medicare GP and ask him (or her) for a certificate saying you’re not getting your rocks off often enough and — hey presto! — the government will fork out for a gift voucher to your local knock shop.

How about that? Talk about “lie-down money!” And it gives a whole new meaning to the Greens’ promise of “grassroots democracy”.