Excess baggage as Tony scales Abbott-proof fence

Eric Lobbecke

OKAY, let's do what the Labor Party, Greens and GetUp! always want us to do and talk about Tony Abbott's problems.

MPs, the love media and the Twitterati have been doing this incessantly for months. Now they're even invoking an "Abbott-proof fence" to recruit members. Having expended the WorkChoices and climate change fear campaigns, Labor's next chosen scare is "Mister Abbott". Fair enough it's not brilliant, but at least it's a strategy.

We should discuss Abbott and his weaknesses for more pertinent reasons. He is critically important right now because he will soon become prime minister. Ms Gillard's rainbow coalition has turned into a rainbow coagulation around the festering sore that is the Craig Thomson affair. So whether it lasts another month or another year, unless something extraordinary occurs there is no doubt the 54-year-old, immigrant, Catholic, married father of three daughters will go to Yarralumla to be sworn in by Bill Shorten's mother-in-law.

The Left's critique of Abbott, of course, is deliberately self-serving. The alleged flaws and failings that Labor spits out are political lines designed to do him harm. Duly parroted by many in the media, they centre on charges that he is extremely negative, aggressive, misogynist and mercurial. Even out of touch with real families.

Given his disciplined campaigning, soaring opinion polls, community engagement and record of achievement inside and outside politics, this is all rather silly. Last week's photo of Abbott with his daughters was the picture that disavowed a thousand words.

We can be sure the attempt to erect an Abbott-proof fence of personal attacks won't stop his march to The Lodge. What really matters are the Abbott weaknesses that might diminish the quality of a government he leads.

He carries unnecessary policy baggage, and the worst is one that was deliberately formulated to counter the personal attacks. Abbott forced on to his party the extra-generous paid parental leave scheme, announcing it without shadow cabinet or party room approval. Clearly, he wanted to make a grand gesture to women in order to combat the misogynist assault. To be fair, it probably worked to some degree at the time.

But now he has a scheme that undercuts his platform in two ways: it bolsters the culture of entitlement he aims to confront and it adds an effective tax burden on business when his main pitch is to lower and repeal taxes.

The $3 billion scheme is funded by a 1.5 per cent company tax levy on the nation's largest companies to fund an extra eight weeks' parental leave, paid at the parent's normal salary (up to $75,000 for six months). It is an extravagance, especially at a time when the non-mining sectors are crying out for relief, not new levies. Given his standing in the polls now, and the increasing doubts about economic prospects, Abbott has the political capital and rationale to simply drop this scheme. If he is particularly wedded to it, he could leave it on his list of aspirational policies, for later.

Likewise, given he opposes the mining tax, Abbott ought to reject all the cash handouts and family payment increases the government intends to fund from it. None of them were mentioned in the case for the tax -- which was supposed to fund a company tax rate cut. Abbott talks a good fiscal discipline game -- in his budget reply speech, he said "the only sustainable tax cuts are based on a permanent decrease in the size of government" -- but he hasn't matched the rhetoric with hard commitments.

Apart from parental leave and a penchant to keep Labor's family handouts, Abbott wants to keep Labor's increased compulsory superannuation payments and touts a dramatically expanded Green Corps scheme. When you couple this with his commitment to Renewable Energy Targets and the direct action plan that aims to match the government's 5 per cent carbon emission reduction target, it becomes difficult to envisage a small-government agenda. Whether he keeps these policies or scraps them, they are so marginal in the political debate that they are unlikely to have an impact on the looming Abbott landslide. But if he keeps them they could have a stultifying impact on his first term in government.

Abbott was right in his budget reply to point out the absence of a plan for economic growth from Labor. We should not underestimate the import of his pledge to repeal the carbon and mining taxes, but the private sector will want more, including a mandate for greater workplace flexibility. Sadly, given the ogre of Workchoices, that might have to wait for an Abbott re-election campaign. All this makes life difficult for his economic team of Joe Hockey and Andrew Robb. Both have been strong contributors in different ways, but in their current roles they haven't worked well together. They have become emblematic of a broader problem -- that Abbott is not fielding his best team. Hockey and Robb would always be in Abbott's best dozen, but their stumbles have served to highlight the under-utilisation of Malcolm Turnbull's economic nous, and of the wise head of the new senator and former chief-of-staff to John Howard, Arthur Sinodinos.

In reality, Turnbull has excluded himself from the Treasury portfolio. He could be considered for it only if he acceded to the party's carbon policy and came to a public and private accommodation with Abbott over leadership. It is genuinely a pity for the nation, let alone the Liberal Party, that this cannot happen.

It would give a Coalition government the best of both worlds -- Abbott's retail politics with Turnbull's economic insight; Abbott's shop-floor ease with Turnbull's corporate schmooze; Abbott's conservative instincts with Turnbull's liberal credentials.

There would be tensions, but they would be the creative tensions of liberalism and conservatism that should be at the core of Coalition success.

Still, the logical move is for Abbott to slip Sinodinos into the finance portfolio, so the economic jobs are split between the chambers. A Hockey-Sinodinos team would be impressive and Robb could easily slot in to a range of other portfolios.

Elsewhere, generational intransigence is holding back a mediocre frontbench team. People like Kevin Andrews and Bronwyn Bishop are holding back opportunities for tyros like Kelly O'Dwyer and Josh Frydenberg. Abbott, wisely, has rewarded loyalty, and it is understandable he doesn't want to upset his team with a reshuffle before an election. But the cost of leaving promotions till government will be the lost opportunity to build experience.

In government, Abbott is likely to have an unwieldy backbench.

Keeping a rein on them will require the best available ministry and plenty of people he can trust.

The sooner he brings the next generation into his inner circle, the better for him.