Just like Howard, Abbott has the numbers that really count

Eric Lobbecke

IT'S Monday, at about noon in a book store in Sydney's eastern suburbs. A 40-something woman places on the counter her credit card and a copy of the latest Quarterly Essay entitled Political Animal, The Making of Tony Abbott by David Marr.

"Oh, he's such a dreadful man, isn't he?" says an older, grey-haired lady standing behind the counter. "Which man?" the younger woman asks foolishly, wondering whether she has happened upon that very rare sub-species of homo sapiens - an inner-city bookseller not captivated by Marr, the theatrical left-wing former Fairfax journalist. A dashed hope. The woman behind the counter looks equally puzzled by the younger woman's response to an obviously rhetorical statement.

"Which man? Why, that man, of course - Abbott," says the older woman with a shrillness usually heard on a TV crime show when the female victim points to the sinister-looking man in a police line-up.

What is it about the Opposition Leader that inspires such venom, even from a sweet-looking grey-haired lady selling books?

Abbott's personal poll numbers as preferred prime minister are certainly low. Maybe Labor's strategy to paint Abbott as Dr No and the Coalition as the Noalition is working among voters.

It seems to be working a treat among those who work in fashionable book stores where, not so long ago, shelves heaved under the weight of books bemoaning the influence of the former prime minister John Howard.

Just as inner-city booksellers and Labor strategists underestimated Howard for years, the desperate, promise-breaking, policy flip-flopping Gillard government is convinced that Abbott is Labor's saviour. That Abbott is a drag on the Coalition vote is the newest Labor article of faith.

Alas, darned reality can unravel the most fervent beliefs. After all, Abbott has the most important numbers on his side. Better to be leading the two-party-preferred poll by a good 10 per cent (the latest Newspoll) while suffering a low personal rating than to be in the reverse position.

Second, it pays to remember some history. Most of us recall the 1996 election as a drubbing of Paul Keating. But who remembers that in the week before the March 1996 election, the man who would become Australia's second-longest serving PM was trailing Keating as preferred PM? Keating enjoyed a 45 per cent preferred prime minister rating to Howard's 40 per cent. In fact, Keating's campaign pitch was one hubristic word - Leadership. Yet, a week before the 1996 election, the Coalition led the two-party-preferred poll by 7 per cent - 53.5 per cent to Labor's 45.5 per cent - a winning margin that was repeated on polling day.

On both scores, Abbott is in a better poll position than Howard was. The Opposition Leader and Julia Gillard skate around 39 per cent and 38 per cent respectively as preferred PM, and the Coalition has a 10 per cent lead on the two-party-preferred score. Not bad given the Dr No myth that Labor has done so much to propagate.

Not one who likes to be overlooked, Kevin Rudd recently tarred the entire conservative side of politics as negative. It was melodramatic, headline-chasing stuff from the PM-in-waiting. It was also like the PM's campaign about Abbott's "destructive negativity" - entirely at odds with history.

The man who trailed Keating as preferred PM in February 1996 spoke about that history earlier this year. Reflecting on his 15 years in opposition and 11 years in government during a private dinner just after Wayne Swan wrote up his class-war thesis in The Monthly, Howard said that if the editors of the left-wing magazine invited him to write a political essay, it would be headed A Tale of Two Oppositions. It would detail the conspicuous hypocrisy behind the Gillard government's constant claim that Liberals are obsessed with opposing policy.

For starters, when Bob Hawke and Keating ushered in ground-breaking economic reforms, the Coalition supported each of those reforms. Floating the Australian dollar, dismantling protectionist barriers, opening up the financial industry and privatising government assets. "Reforms" in the true sense of that word, they enjoyed support from the Liberal Party, Howard said. He recalled that on the eve of the 1995 budget, then deputy prime minister Kim Beazley rang Howard and asked him whether the Liberals still supported the privatisation of the Commonwealth Bank. Howard said yes. Beazley was relieved, telling Howard that the Keating Labor government needed the support of Liberals in the Senate because the Democrats opposed the sale of CBA. The sale went ahead thanks to Liberal support.

And yet, as Howard also recalled, barely a few years later the Howard government met stiff Labor opposition to the privatisation of Telstra. "Let's get negativity in perspective," Howard said. "I can't think of a single economic reform that wasn't trenchantly opposed by the Labor opposition during our years in government."

Even after the Coalition won the 1998 election with a mandate to introduce a GST, the Labor Party vehemently opposed this economic reform in the most absurd fashion. Chasing headlines even then, Rudd labelled its introduction as "fundamental injustice" day. Compared with that, the negativity from the current opposition hardly rates a serious mention. Opposing the Gillard government's signature policy - the carbon tax - is a no-brainer.

This is not a genuine economic reform given that the world's largest emitters will not countenance such a tax. Opposing it makes even more sense after the government's recent backflip to remove the $15 floor price from 2015.

As Graham Richardson wrote on this page last Friday, "if a $15 floor price looks too high for 2015, today's price (of $23) is just plain ridiculous. It has no credibility with the business community or the punters at large."

It makes eminent sense to oppose policies that make little economic sense. And there is little economic sense emanating from the Prime Minister and the Treasurer.

While Keating, as treasurer, combined fine reforming instincts with deadly political attacks, Swan is left with a poorly constructed mining tax, a hopelessly flawed carbon tax and the lyrics of Bruce Springsteen about class warfare.

To coin a phrase from the American political drama, The West Wing - and with apologies to fans of Solitary Man - Swan is Neil Diamond to Keating's Neil Young. Swan will not be remembered as a deep-thinking, reforming Treasurer - hence, the opposition's opposition.

Back in the book store, the grey-haired lady behind the counter looks aghast when the customer suggests that more people seem to prefer an Abbott-led Coalition government to the current Gillard government. "That's the problem with democracy," sniffs the older lady. "It always leaves some people grumpy."

"Indeed, it does," muses the younger woman, stepping out into the sun-drenched day, with the Marr diatribe under her arm.