Repentance requires a sacrifice called Credlin

IF Tony Abbott is to have any chance of making a success of the quite limited breathing space he has won, he must convince both his party and the nation he understands that in major ways he has got it wrong and will change.

This requires a big gesture of repentance, and part of this now must be for his chief-of-staff, Peta Credlin, to move out of his office and resign.

Abbott needs to do this for reasons of substance, and for reasons of gesture.

The Prime Minister’s tone with his party yesterday was much more contrite than it has been previously. Instead of just wishing away the leadership tension, he has promised a raft of new consultative mechanisms, much more regular meetings of the full ministry, formalised meetings with backbenchers and a new openness to consulting backbenchers.

Given this was a backbench revolt, this is mere common sense. In normal circumstances, the public doesn’t care much about this sort of insider politics. Abbott’s problem is not just with his backbench, but with the Australian public, as the truly diabolic state of his — and the government’s standing — in Newspoll demonstrates.

He needs to give the same message to both constituencies: I was wrong, I ask your forgiveness, this is how I will change.

There are only a few things a Prime Minister in this circumstance can do to command attention. A ministerial reshuffle would be justified but it’s hard to do one when the last occurred just a couple of months ago. And Abbott’s position within his party may be too weak in any event to carry it off. There will be a raft of significant, specific policy changes, not least on Medicare.

One thing a prime minister can do is change his chief-of-staff.

This is often an action taken by American presidents when they want to signal a profound change in attitude and approach. It is the iron logic of the imperial prime minister’s office; if the office has failed, the chief-of-staff should move on.

This is a move justified in substance. Credlin is a dedicated and talented servant of the Australian nation who has given her all to her job. It is not necessary to apportion blame for all the failings of the Abbott government to conclude that it is time for her to move on.

Right across the parliamentary Liberal Party, right across the backbench and the frontbench there are terrible relations with the Prime Minister’s Office, and these focus overwhelmingly on the chief-of-staff.

It would be ignoring reality to write anything different.

The caricature of Abbott is that he is a super tough guy. In fact, his weakness is the reverse, and his weaknesses stem from his strengths.

One outstanding attribute of the Abbott character is loyalty, but in a head of government, this is misplaced if it harms the interests of the government.

Bob Hawke wept tears of blood when he sacked from the cabinet very nearly his best friend, Mick Young, but he had no doubt the sacking was in the interests of the government, so he did it.

Credlin’s public profile is utterly unsustainable and can no longer be fixed just by taking a less visible role. Nor can all the ill will within the party be fixed by doing everything the same as before but just doing it a little bit better.

It’s like the mantically overworked Kevin Rudd promising to “work harder” when he got into trouble.

In deep trouble, a leader has two choices: play it safe, or play it risky. Playing it safe generally guarantees honourable failure.

In rugby league parlance, it’s the grand final with 10 minutes to go and the side is down 14-nil. Playing the same grinding style of football as played in the last 70 minutes is extremely unlikely to succeed. You need to take some calculated but serious risks — kicking on the third tackle, bringing on the talented but untried youngster on the bench with the X factor.

The last time Abbott came back from similar adversity was the 2010 election. The Liberals were in dire trouble and Abbott did things almost everyone advised him not to. He went after Rudd with a vengeance and opposed the emissions trading scheme with passion.

This is a newly and radically dangerous situation for the Prime Minister. He shouldn’t die wondering whether radical action might have worked this time.