Broadside as Admiral Abbott finds his sea legs

UNDER Admiral of the Fleet Tony Abbott, the HMAS Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-il or Joseph Stalin will never put to sea.

UNDER  Admiral of the Fleet Tony Abbott, HMAS Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-il or Joseph Stalin will never put to sea.

Not on Sir Tony’s watch.

After seeing off a threatened backbench mutiny to install an undeclared­ challenger in Able Seaman Malcolm Bligh Turnbull, the Prime Minister was keen to move on from the big chill inside the Liberal Party to something even more “so yesterday’’— the Cold War.

Labor rightly turned its attack in question time to the government’s woes on submarines.

Members made little headway on their central allegation that Abbott­ gave an undertaking on submarines in return for South Australian votes as insurance against a leadership spill motion.

But the opposition did succeed in keeping the heat on the government over the issue of Australia’s biggest ever Defence purchase, worth more than $20 billion and a generation of jobs.

On a day when the Coalition announced a tightening of foreign investment rules on agricultural land — determined to show “good government starts today’’ — parliament was consumed by the question of home-built subs versus whether overseas tenderers should be considered.

It’s an unnecessary distraction when you are trying to show you are getting on with business.

Admiral Abbott and Midshipman Kevin Andrews maintain they announced a “competitive evaluation process’’ on the weekend to build new submarines to replace the ageing Collins-class fleet.

Petty Officer Sean Edwards, who admits to being swayed to vote for Admiral Abbott because of the subs decision, says he believed­ that it would an “open tender process’’.

Admiral Abbott explained there was a difference between a competitive evaluation process and an open tender process because the latter could see all comers bid to build Aussie subs, including the Reds.

Labor wants a competitive tender process but that didn’t stop Admira­l Abbott powering ahead with the charge that Bill Shorten secretly favoured an open tender process. The Prime Minister was suspicious. What Commodore Shorten might want to see, he said, was for the “Russians to compete, the Putin-class subs’’.

“First of all, he attacks the Japan­ese in some bout of ante­diluvian xenophobia and says that we cannot possibly have Japanese involvement in the submarine contract because of what happened in Sydney Harbour,’’ Admiral Abbott said.

“Now he says we’ve got to have an open tender. We could have Kim Jong-il-class submarines or Vladimir Putin submarines.’’

Admiral Abbott’s decision to play the “Putin card’’ reminded backbenchers and voters of a time when he vowed to “shirtfront’’ the Russian President at the G20 in Brisbane over the downing of Malaysia­ Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine.

The pugilist Prime Minister’s muscling-up during question time played to his strength — going on the attack.

Over the coming weeks, however, he’ll need to convince he can also lead from the bow.