The Left’s gift that just keeps giving for Abbott

Zali Steggall is just the sort of capable woman who could replace Tony Abbott at the next election. But the left-wing activists she keeps as company leave him in favour, writes Miranda Devine.

Tony Abbott doesn’t need any help to lose the Sydney electorate he’s held for 25 years.

By his own admission he’s treating what should be one of the Coalition’s safest seats, Warringah on Sydney’s northern shores, as marginal, which doesn’t say much for his vaunted political aptitude after eight terms.

Nor, for that matter, does the fact he lost his job as prime minister in 2015.

That is ancient history now, two prime ministers later. Abbott could have spent the last three years being a great local member, while engaging in genuine introspection and contrition to rebuild his credibility.

Instead, he fell into the easy embrace of sycophants and focused his energies on plotting against the man who did him in.

The upshot is that now the disruptive former PM is on the nose on both sides of the Spit Bridge and faces a real threat from former Olympic skier Zali Steggall, who is just the sort of pleasant, capable woman who could turn the blue-ribbon seat independent at the next election.

Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott says he’s in “the fight of my life” leading up to the election. Picture: AAP /Lukas Coch

Abbott holds Warringah with what should be an unassailable 11 per cent margin.

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But at the 2016 election he suffered a nine per cent swing up against a gaggle of greenies and no-name independents, and that was before he really ramped up the insurgency against the Turnbull government that so dismayed his constituents.

His first preferences fell below 52 per cent in 2016, down from 61pc in 2013. These days, the polite electorate is plastered with “Time’s Up Tony stickers”. The baseball bats are ready.

And Abbott knows it. He tells everyone he’s in “the fight of my life” and is back taking selfies in his budgie smugglers, haunting Balmoral and The Corso, even launching a crusade against Portaloos on Manly Beach.

His sudden interest in a tunnel under Spit Bridge, which the electorate has been crying out for during his entire reign, is regarded with eye-rolling cynicism.

Protesters against Tony Abbott at the Spit Bridge on Sydney's North Shore. Picture: Facebook/Julie Giannesini

A half-decent, moderately conservative independent with a profile and local roots could win the seat in this era of ephemeral party loyalties.

Enter Steggall.

The 44-year-old barrister and mother of two teenage boys lives in Balgowlah, was born and raised in Manly, the daughter of a local rugby identity, and went to school at Queenwood in Mosman, where she now serves on the board.

She is articulate, photogenic, and renowned as Australia’s only Olympic medallist in alpine skiing.

She also has had her struggles. When her first marriage to elite rower David Cameron fell apart, she completed law school as a single mother of two toddlers. She later married marketing executive Tim Irving, a divorced father of three daughters whose father is friendly with John Howard. She has described their family as the “Brady Bunch”.

So far so perfect.

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But, although Steggall is smart enough to know that she needs to pitch herself as a “moderate Liberal”, the green-left activist machine behind her campaign puts the lie to that claim.

With bandana-wearing local Fairfax leftie Peter-they-asked-me-first-FitzSimons claiming ownership of her bid in his columns, and climate alarmist Tim Flannery wheeled out for her campaign launch last month, Steggall was off to a bad start.

Her loudmouth backers, the extreme leftists of GetUp! and various local social justice warriors, are the gift that keeps on giving for Abbott.

Zali Steggall is an independent candidate contesting the seat of Warriingah again Tony Abbott. Picture: AAP/Troy Snook

They’ve forgotten Mosman is not Newtown, and Warringah is not Wentworth.

GetUp! regularly tweet photographs of grim-looking Baby Boomers in “Time’s Up Tony “ T-shirts, boasts of signing up hundreds of new local members and vows to knock on all 64,000 doors of residents in the electorate.

Steggall tries to keep her distance: “I don’t have anything to do with GetUp!” she says. But know her by the company she keeps.

Her co-campaign manager Louise Hislop is an unabashed left-wing activist who last year praised former GetUp! campaign boss Sally Rugg for contributing to her “education and self-improvement”.

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Hislop’s twitter feed is full of enthusiastic endorsement of the likes of Jane Caro and Fr Rod Bower. It’s all global warming, racism and refugees, pill testing, anti-negative gearing, and anti-government funding for non-government schools, with the odd anti-Catholic barb thrown in, which is a curious position in an electorate with a lot of Catholics and private schools.

Steggall’s official flyers turning up in letterboxes across the electorate may not feature GetUp!’s logo, but the policies are indistinguishable.

“Live up to our responsibility as citizens of the world … drive the shift to much lower carbon emissions … commit to limiting global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees … refugees … celebrate our diversity”.

While a lot of genuine environmentalists concerned about climate change live on the beautiful northern beaches, and a lot of doctor’s wife types live in Mosman, the Greens vote is only 12 per cent.

Liberal voters in Warringah fed up with their local member and dying for an alternative still won’t stomach a GetUp! candidate. For all his faults, Abbott’s just not that bad.

With their tin ear for the electorate, Steggall’s friends are doing their best to turn likely defeat for the irrepressible member for Warringah into a contest he can win.

@mirandadevine