Sniper no sniping - Tony Abbott won’t be quiet and he won’t go away

Extract from The Monthly

The view from Billinudgel

By Mungo MacCallum

Monday, 5th October 2015

I watched (through gritted teeth, naturally) last week’s slobber fest between Tony Abbott and Ray Hadley, and the slightly less cloying effort a couple of days later with Neil Mitchell; and I was immediately reassured.

Everything was completely okay; there had been no change, there would be no change, there should be no change. The economy was recovering, security was impregnable, global warming was totally under control, gay marriage was still off. Oh, and incidentally we should mention that we have stopped the boats. All was for the best in the best of all possible worlds, Abbott-land.

There was not a hint of contrition or apology, not even bare acknowledgement that perhaps, just perhaps, that when a substantial majority of his own party room had joined the wider public in despairing of the man, there could have been something amiss. If it hadn’t been a failure of nerve from his cowering and pusillanimous supporters, his gutsy budget would have delivered him triumph, not only in the Canning by-election but in the national poll that would  have followed. Glory, glory hallelujah.

This orgy of self-congratulation was applauded by the usual suspects, notably Hadley himself, Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones and Greg Sheridan; and even the less besotted granted him indulgence. At least he tried; but he failed, and most were very pleased that he is gone. But he is not in fact going away at all; as the last few days showed, there will be plenty of opportunities to kick Tony Abbott around for a while yet.

He is not going to contemplate his future until at least Christmas, and that must be an ongoing concern for the new political order. Abbott is not about to attempt a comeback to the prime ministership; not even the most devoted of his minions are deluded enough to consider that a real possibility.

But he clearly envisages a major role within the government, something akin to that of a perpetual godfather, with all the blood and angst that this entails. He will be the keeper of the holy relics of his two chaotic years; like most holy relics they will be more myth than reality, but he is determined to preserve and enhance them nonetheless.

And in spite of all the protestations of no sniping, no white-anting, he does not intend to hold back. He is not ready to forgive Malcolm Turnbull; Abbott’s Christianity is not of the turn-the-other-cheek variety. And, more worryingly, his argument with Scott Morrison is unrelenting. It is not disputed that Abbott made a last-minute bid to offer Morrison a joint ticket to run as deputy, but then it gets messy.

Whether he spelt it out or not, Morrison naturally assumed that as deputy he would have the prerogative of selecting his own portfolio, and of course that it would be treasury. Joe Hockey would go under the bus. But Abbott maintains that there would have been no point in delivering a blood sacrifice to his opponents; it was his scalp they were after. The problem is that he was perfectly willing to toss Julie Bishop onto the altar; apparently the only victim to be spared was his bond-maiden Peta Credlin.

His concern for Hockey is not entirely believable and certainly not gracious. But it is very, very, Abbott. Like that other mad monk, Rasputin, he will be very hard to kill off.