Time for Tony Abbott to stand small

THE Coalition has changed tack and appears to be making caution its new mantra.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott engages in hard labour at a Canberra building site. Picture: Kym Smith

THE problems besetting the government - poor polling and conflict with the mining sector over its super-profits tax - has given the opposition a free ride in recent weeks. As Labor frontbencher Gary Gray observed when contacted by The Australian: "The damage that the government brand has suffered has been almost entirely self-inflicted."

But Labor's woes are no guarantee that the public is ready to elect a Coalition government.

According to the latest Newspoll, one in four voters intends to register a primary vote for a party other than the majors. It is a sign that while the people are unhappy with the Rudd government, they aren't exactly warming to the idea of Tony Abbott as prime minister.

The worry for conservatives is that if they can't convince protest voters to come on board at this point in the electoral cycle, they might find that when the election draws closer, those same voters decide to give the incumbents the benefit of the doubt. As one Liberal observes "even [Gough] Whitlam got a second term".

The Opposition Leader's high dissatisfaction ratings (about 50 per cent) and Labor's attempts in recent days to warn the public against an Abbott prime ministership (with threats of a return to Work Choices and cuts in social spending) both suggest while Abbott was the solution to the Coalition's lack of unity when he became leader late last year, he might now be a barrier to the party pulling off what no first-term opposition since 1931 has managed to achieve: victory over a one-term administration. That is what Labor's focus groups are saying.

Privately, however, senior Liberals acknowledge that their problems go deeper than simple voter concerns about their leader. There are tensions at the top of the leadership team between Abbott and his deputy Julie Bishop. There are tensions between Abbott's office and some senior frontbenchers, as well as with the campaign unit, which is underprepared for an election campaign.

Fundraising has been a problem and continues to be, despite perceptions that the government's mining tax has seen the resources sector pump money the Coalition's way.

Tensions between Liberals and Nationals remain just below the surface. And, most important for the conservatives, the Liberal-National Party in Queensland is dysfunctional.

The danger for the Coalition is that if the government manages to find a way through the mining tax impasse and cuts a deal with industry, the Coalition's problems will be targeted by a press gallery in search of the next big story.

Liberals well remember how their internal problems dominated political coverage of their time in opposition, until the end of last year. It wasn't too long ago that Abbott was asking his colleagues to allow him to be bold if they wanted to be competitive at the next election.

In March this year he told his party room: "we won't win the next election by adopting a Barry O'Farrell-style small target strategy." Abbott was referring to the idea that in NSW, after more than 15 years of Labor rule, the Liberal Opposition Leader is avoiding releasing large-scale policies.

Abbott determined that dislodging a one-term government required an entirely different strategy.

But the change in the government's fortunes in the past few months has caused Abbott to alter his game plan. He is now telling colleagues he doesn't want to frighten the horses, suggesting Abbott wants to lower his profile and keep the focus on the government's failings instead of what the opposition's policies in government might actually look like.

This makes it less likely we will see, ahead of the election. the detail needed to establish what kind of government Abbott would lead, thus feeding Labor's attacks that he can't be trusted.

The remark from Abbott about O'Farrell came at a time when he wanted to convince his troops that they should be encouraging rather than discouraging of his generous paid maternity leave scheme, funded by a tax on big business, and questioned at the time by a number of Coalition MPs in the joint party room meeting.

Abbott had announced the policy without telling his shadow cabinet or his party room that he would be doing so.

Nick Minchin was particularly unimpressed. That type of autocratic rule, which included further examples in the weeks that followed, was what sank Malcolm Turnbull's leadership when he was accused of not listening to his backbench on the emissions trading scheme.

Because this is an election year, and because Liberals are desperate for stability after two leadership changes in slightly more than two years, Abbott has been able to get away with an autocratic style.

It was left to Bishop to convince colleagues about the importance of the paid maternity leave policy in the party room on pragmatic grounds, because the Coalition was bleeding votes among women under the age of 45 with children.

It is well known in Liberal Party circles that Abbott and Bishop aren't close. Shortly after Abbott became leader a disparaging email exchange between Turnbull and Bishop about Abbott was leaked to the media.

Abbott questions Bishop's political skills and Bishop is known to have long questioned his suitability for leadership.

When Abbott challenged for the leadership late last year, his preference was to replace Bishop as deputy. But because of the expected closeness of the vote and the need for conservatives to keep a woman in the deputy's role, he was told by supporters not to make the deputy leadership an issue.

At the time, Bishop expressed her frustration to colleagues that despite all the leadership machinations, in particular when a Joe Hockey-Peter Dutton ticket looked likely, nobody had given her the courtesy of telling her what was going on.

Since Abbott's party room plea for bold action, caution has become the new mantra. Abbott is now avoiding doing unnecessary media interviews for fear of creating a counter-productive headline. And his director of communications, Tony O'Leary, former press secretary to John Howard, is imposing strict limits on the media that shadow ministers do, reminiscent of an approvals system more akin to government.

"In opposition you need to take your chances," one frustrated Liberal frontbencher explains. "O'Leary only has a nose for government; he's actually quite new to opposition. If we are saying no to media opportunities now, we aren't going to be done any favours when we really want free media during the campaign."

A number of shadow ministers have complained about the strictures, but for the moment Abbott is standing by O'Leary's judgment.

It is all part of a strategy to avoid gaffes and keep the pressure on the government.

The federal campaign director Brian Loughnane and O'Leary do not get on, a hangover from tensions that existed at the tail end of the Howard era between the prime minister's office and campaign HQ.

Loughnane's wife, Peta Credlin, is Abbott's chief-of-staff, meaning that Abbott's office could split into two camps. For the moment, Credlin gets along with O'Leary.

Some Liberals are critical of Credlin's performance; others suggest that since her time in Turnbull's office (where she was initially also chief-of-staff) she has refined her skills and is adding value.

Loughnane has the baggage of running the failed 2007 election campaign, leading to some suggestions that he shouldn't be in charge of campaigning.

Peter Costello used to ask the question (perhaps in jest) why both he and Howard lost their jobs yet Loughnane managed to hold on to his.

"He is nothing if not a political survivor," one Liberal MP notes.

Raising the funds it needs to be competitive once the paid advertising component of a campaign really kicks in will be a challenge for the Coalition. This has been an issue identified by party strategists since the moment Turnbull was toppled from the leadership (it was even one of the points raised in lobbying for retaining Turnbull).

It was previously assumed that if the campaign needed finances, Turnbull would personally offer assistance.

That is no longer likely.

The miners are running an expensive ad campaign against the government at the moment, but they are doing so themselves rather than by tipping money into the Coalition as an agent.

Some Liberals wonder whether it is a deliberate strategy in case they cut a deal with the government ahead of the election.

There are a number of electorates at this year's poll that will see three-cornered contests because both the Nationals and the Liberals are throwing their hats in to open seats with retiring members, as well as seats such as Wilson Tuckey's, sapping the Coalition of funds it needs to take on the government directly.

While Abbott became a force for unity between the Coalition partners, particularly after Turnbull's attempts to support the government's emissions trading scheme when the Nationals opposed it, the demotion of Barnaby Joyce has caused tensions in shadow cabinet.

Hockey is believed to be frustrated that Joyce still retains responsibility for the finance portfolio in the Senate, while Joyce is getting sick and tired of his name being synonymous with political mistakes (the most recent example was provided by Liberal Andrew Robb who said Rudd had "done a Barnaby" in relation to the mining tax).

More worrying for conservatives than any problems already mentioned is the moribund state of the LNP in Queensland. Yesterday Abbott was reported to have expressed concerns about the state of the conservative party in Queensland. The LNP is plagued with problems, most recently the decision to disendorse its candidate for the marginal seat of Wright, Hajnal Ban.

Before that the member for Ryan, Michael Johnson, was controversially kicked out of the party and senior frontbencher Dutton was unable to win preselection for the safe seat of McPherson, forcing him to retreat back into his notionally Labor seat of Dickson after an unfavourable electoral redistribution.

One MP calls the LNP a "papier-mache party". There are serious concerns they are not ready for the election, he adds.

Queensland was the state that delivered Howard the prime ministership in 1996 when voters had their baseball bats at the ready for Paul Keating. The story was the same when the Sunshine State swung wildly against Howard at the last election.

If the Coalition is to win this year's election and win the minimum nine seats it needs to form government, it will need Queensland seats such as Flynn, Dawson, Longman and Leichhardt to swing its way, not to mention hold on

to its Queensland marginal seats such as Dickson, Bowman and Ryan.

Abbott knows that his side of politics has a lot of work to do before the public might be prepared to entrust it with government once again, hence the large body of protest votes that has gone to the Greens instead of the Coalition.

But Abbott believes the Labor Party, and Rudd in particular, are so on the nose that the Coalition can win the next election by default anyway.

That is why Abbott has shifted from a strategy of bold policies and rhetoric to a small target so as not to frighten voters away.

It is a risk, especially if some of the more dysfunctional elements of the conservatives' internal workings come to the surface between now and polling day.