Voters tune in, but is Abbott's signal the right one?

YOU have to admire the audacity of a political party that displays its contempt for an opponent by portraying him as the leader they tried to have elected prime minister just three elections ago.

As it turns out, the electorate didn't buy the line that Tony Abbott is the erratic Mark Latham reincarnated in a conservative's body.

But if Abbott did start thinking like Latham (the thinking Latham, that is, not the punchy one), Labor might find itself in serious trouble. For while Latham will forever be defined by the personality failures that killed his chances of leading Labor to victory and inspired his revengeful diaries, he was one of the few Labor figures in recent times who intuitively understood the aspirations of middle Australia.

A leader of Abbott's calibre could do worse than seize Latham's ladder of opportunity and craft it into a policy framework to win back John Howard's battlers with a message that goes beyond fear and offers the hope of redemption.

"The politics of envy has been replaced by the politics of aspiration," Latham wrote in The Daily Telegraph in 2003. "Our greatest aspiration in life, of course, is to leave something better for the next generation. This is the guts of federal Labor's policy agenda: to help families improve the savings, education and healthcare of their children." It was a message that could have come from Robert Menzies, a call to action for the forgotten people.

Latham campaigned that way until the election was formally called. It was only late in the campaign that he was wrong-footed by Howard over Tasmanian forests. Then Latham started to lose his way, personified by his shaking the life out of Howard's hand.

Latham's descent into bitterness also has erased the memory of a leader who entered the 2004 election campaign from a position of strength, having achieved something similar to what Abbott did last year. Latham took over a rabble 12 months out from an election and converted that position into an election-winning lead before the campaign started.

He did it by appealing to voters growing tired of a Coalition government that was beginning to run out of ideas, while Abbott brought the Coalition back from the brink by exposing a failed Labor Party. In the end Latham got spooked that his left flank was exposed and he mistakenly made a late play to it at the expense of his centre, costing Labor a battler electorate in each and every state.

Abbott doesn't need to hold out similar fears about his right flank because, with the likes of Alan Jones barracking for him on the airwaves, Abbott's right flank is more than secure. But he will become as vulnerable as Latham became if he forgets that elections are won in the middle ground, and the support he needs in western Sydney and the NSW Central Coast, as in similar regions of other states, does not necessarily warm to strident rhetoric.

He must listen and learn from the voters who will decide the next election, and while talkback radio may be the forum he needs to speak to them, he must be careful of the company he keeps.

Jones is a natural ally who has supported Abbott through thick and thin. He regards Abbott as a protege in the same way Abbott regards Howard as a mentor. His partisanship was on display yesterday when he put courtesy to one side and tried to maul Julia Gillard verbally, treating her like an adult might treat a child.

Jones has a large following but he is not, at heart, a creature of the western suburbs, and Jones's Circular Quay penthouse, with its pleasant view, is hardly Struggle Street. His listeners tend to be older and more conservative than those of his fellow 2GB broadcaster, Ray Hadley.

Hadley did more than any other broadcaster to expose the debacle of the home insulation scheme and school building program, which damaged the government in the suburbs.

Jones is the partisan cheerleader, but Hadley is the voice of mainstream Australia, with an ear finely tuned to its frustrations and aspirations.

Despite his financial success, Hadley continues to live in the western suburbs he loves, the land of his listeners.

There remains a reasonable chance Labor won't improve on the performance of its first term, and therefore Abbott will be able to get away with highlighting what he is not, to win the prime ministership. More likely is that voters will tire of the relentless negativity. Even if they don't, Abbott's parliamentary colleagues may, which would foster division.

We saw signs of this scenario beginning to unfold in recent weeks as Coalition colleagues turned on one another because of a mixture of personal ambitions, differing policy views and frustration at the lack of a tangible ethos for government, all when government failings should have been the issue.

Opposition is hard and this past fortnight Abbott has found out how hard it can be.

A government struggling with so many policy problems, not to mention warfare between unions and cabinet ministers, improved its position in the polls and Julia Gillard shot to a 22-point net satisfaction lead over Abbott, an unsustainable differential for him in the medium term.

For the opposition to turn around its fortunes and unite its team, it must make a play for the aspirational vote, not by appealing to people's worst instincts on issues such as multiculturalism but by appealing to their desire to give their children a better life than they themselves are enjoying; indeed, a pitch for people who want to improve their own lives as well.

That has always been the Liberal Party's greatest strength. It was Howard's strength, even if he used fear of the other to cap his electoral success occasionally.

When Latham was traversing the country selling himself as someone who understood the desires of people in regions such as western Sydney, he was doing what Abbott should be doing

now. Like Latham, Abbott is

good on the ground, appealing

to such voters when he meets and greets them. Unlike Latham, Abbott won't lose his grip on the task at hand, so long as he isn't captured by partisan right-wing extremists.

Jones's world view wasn't broad enough to win even one of his five attempts at becoming an MP for the conservatives, which is food for thought for Abbott, who wants to appeal to the entire nation. And when Jones isn't being relentlessly negative, his positive ideas take on a maverick feel, such as turning the rivers around to solve inland droughts, or economic nationalism, which fits more accurately with the ideas of One Nation than the Liberal Party.

Hadley is a different sort of right-wing voice, one who has been out in front of the pack in predicting government problems. But he is also prepared to condemn the conservatives when he thinks they have gone too far, such as Coalition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison's timing in criticising the cost of funerals for asylum-seekers killed off Christmas Island.

Aspirational voters are prepared to vote for either side of politics, depending on which offers them a better deal. They are the archetypal swinging voter.

To appeal to such a cohort, political leaders need to give nuance to their partisan messages, which is why Abbott would do well to distance himself from people who are trying to lock him into the role of a right-wing fanatic. The message to Abbott: choose your shock jock wisely.