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In the aftermath of both the South Australian election and the Batman by-election there are two broad conclusions. Only one party was a clear winner, namely Labor, in the Batman by-election, its candidate increasing the party’s majority from the narrowest of narrow wins in 2016. The Greens, full of confidence that the seat was theirs for the taking, have suffered a stunning and major defeat on what should be their home turf, an electorate sown thick with virtuous bicycles, mung beans and social-justice activism.
In South Australia, the change of government notwithstanding, no single party could be described as a genuine winner. The relatively poor performance of the minor parties — Nick Xenophon’s SA Best, Greens, and Australian Conservatives — enabled the Liberals to secure a lower house majority despite falling some 7% short of their primary vote at the previous state election.
What to make of all this?
Let us start with Xenophon, for whom the result was utter humiliation: only two seats in the Legislative Council, none in the lower house. Widely touted as a kingmaker, even as a possible premier, Xenophon saw a collapse in his personal popularity and now holds no elected position. The closer voters looked at SA Best and the other minor parties, the less they saw them as viable alternatives to the established centre-right and centre-left.
Steve Marshall’s emergence as premier is not so much a win for the Liberal Party as it is a victory for the mainstream centre-right over what proved less-than-viable competitors. This suggests the centre-right, represented by the Liberal Party and its Coalition partner, the Nationals, will see off any competition from that flank at the federal level — in other words, the likes of One Nation and the Australian Conservatives. Similarly, the Labor Party should have the confidence and fortitude to recognise that the Greens have hit a ceiling, their policies, attitudes and hyperbolic rhetoric alienating the vast majority of Australians and, apparently, quite a few of their erstwhile supporters.
The Australian Conservatives’ failure to meet predictions and expectations is another matter. Senator Cory Bernardi attracted large crowds of disillusioned Liberals and right-inclined voters at meetings conducted around Australia during 2017. Nationwide, more than 15,000 Australians joined the Australian Conservatives. Yet among voters at large, the party seems to have gained little traction. In Bennelong in December, the party polled less than did the Christian Democrats in the 2016 general election. In South Australia, the Australian Conservatives attained little more than half the votes formerly garnered by Family First, meaning the parties’ merger has yielded less than nothing in terms of electoral success.
It seems that widespread personal support for Cory Bernardi simply does not translate into votes for his party. The Liberals’ would-be competitor just cannot get traction, or so it seems on the basis of the latest returns.
Why the gulf between great expectations and the anti-climatic thud of tally room numbers falling way short? Well, by my reckoning, Tony Abbott must take much of the credit for keeping conservatives inside the Liberal tent.
Let me explain: against furious opposition from the NSW party’s “moderate” power brokers, he secured passage of the so-called Warringah Motion which aimed to ensure all members of the Liberal Party have an equal say on the selection of parliamentary candidates, an initiative endorsed by a large meeting of rank-and-file party faithful at Randwick Racecourse. At a subsequent meeting of the Liberal Party State Council, the faction bosses staged a partial fightback, failing to realise that Tony Abbott and his fellow conservatives had saved the Liberal Party from a mass walkout by giving ordinary branch members hope that the cronyism, branch-stacking, general deviousness and Labor-lite policies of the current NSW regime are not beyond reform.
NSW’s so-called moderates must now reckon with the emergence of Senator Jim Molan, a solid conservative and Abbott ally. Further displays of malice or self-serving stupidity by the Left faction — witness Molan’s relegation to the un-electable seventh spot on the Senate ticket and his subsequent rise as a result of the liabilities and deficiencies of those placed above him — can only further incite those on the party’s right. While the dominant faction is sly, rather than smart, its heelers, advocates and operatives surely have the wit not to provoke mutiny.
Far from being the disruptive and divisive force, as so often depicted by the lockstep thinkers on the left who opine for the ABC and Fairfax Media, Abbott and his fellow conservatives in the Liberal Party continue to provide a conservative ballast against the further heeling to port of the ship whose bridge Malcolm Turnbull and his minions seized and still control. Much as he might wish, Turnbull cannot cast himself in full measure as the antipodean Angela Merkel. In this regard he owes Abbott a great debt for saving him from his own worst impulses and instincts. The more Abbott, Molan, Andrew Hastie and others continue to speak out, the more irrelevant any rival party on the right, such as Bernardians and Hansonites, will remain.
My prediction, both an inkling and reasoned surmise, is that the inevitable defeat of the Turnbull government will see the re-emergence of a genuinely conservative Liberal Party and, quite possibly, Bernardi re-submitting his membership papers and the end of the Australian Conservatives as a separate party. Should that happen it will be Tony Abbott’s doing.
I said before and I say it again “the Australian Conservatives are going nowhere”. With Shorten waging an ever-increasing class war which harks back to the 1950s the Coalition has been given the gift of DIFFERENTIATION. It’s not over yet, folks; not until the fat lady sings.
Phew! Glad to see you’re still here, Jody. You’ve been so quiet, I thought you’d gone.
It is early days yet, Jody. Commentators have made much of the ACs lack of purchase in the SA election, despite this being Cory’s home state. But there is so much about that election that doesn’t make complete sense. The Liberals had a 7% swing against them, but with the changes to the electoral boundaries they managed to scrape in. Labor experienced a 2% swing against them and yet crowed about nearly winning. As somebody, I think it was Samantha Maiden, said: ‘the operation was a success; the patient is dead’. And yet the ACs only experienced an average of a 3.5% voter support, which was hardly a ringing endorsement, and Cory acknowledged as much in his weekly newsletter.
So where does that leave us? Much as I like Tony (and Jim Molan) I don’t think he is going to ‘jump start’ a conservative resurgence in the near terminal Liberal Party, despite Christopher Carr’s optimism. Nor do I think we’ve seen the last of the Greens, quite simply because the crazies are still out there, and with Labor too tame for them they have to have somewhere to howl.
So, despite being a member of the ACs, I do feel there is the necessary pizzazz missing. In my own (RSP) regional support group, there are edgy personality things going on, which more than often undermine moral; but we are also a little long (and yellow) in the tooth, with me in my late sixties being one of the younger members there. I suspect we are a party of old farts and that must have an effect on electioneering.
I am with you there Warty.
As much as Chris Carr’s article is right and that Abbott is indeed that political magnet, that pulls back so many of those voters that gave him a landslide in 2013, it will not be possible by the next election to win power in his own right.
That is where AC and Cory Bernardi enter stage right (has a nice ring to it) looking to control the Senate. It is unlikely that Shorten will have a majority in the Senate, nor would Trumble in the event he scrapes back in for another term. In the vein of “Keep the Bastards honest” Cory has a pivotal role to play.
It is possible that an Abbott led team could win the 2022 election based on a guaranteed disaster after this next term, by whoever gets in.
I am very happy with the achievement of One Nation in Queensland. With everybody preferencing against us, we won the local seat of Mirani, and made sure the Turnbull mob lost, by preferencing against all sitting members.
Like the old DLP, which supported Menzies against Labor, we are prepared to preference Labor over Turnbull.
Whether the Turnbull mob wants to loose the Federal Election in Queensland is entirely up to them.
I’d preference Satan himself over Turnbull.
Well, Shorten will certainly deliver that for you.
Chris,
I see your point. I hope you’re right. It will take a special group to turn the ship around. There may be a core identifiable but it will take talent and discipline not seen in recent times. A lot of ground to make up to win back the hearts and souls of the majority. I live in hope.
Totally disagree with the premise that “The more Abbott, Molan, Andrew Hastie and others continue to speak out, the more irrelevant any rival party on the right, such as Bernardians and Hansonites, will remain.”
At the next Federal election, the great majority of disenfranchised Liberal voters WILL be voting for the Australian Conservatives and One Nation. You are wrong on the numbers. The great majority of politicians in the now Turnbull Party are Left wing and anti-conservative. Tony Abbott and those few other true blue Liberals should move across to The Australian Conservatives which is a middle of the road, common sense party, and help make Australia great again.
Xenophon will ever be substantial. He is a limelight chaser. He has never finished anything he started. Right wing conservatism is out of style. People want fair. Abbott lost the electorate with the medicare co-payment in the first budget.
; a gross misjudgement. I am sorry to say Abbott will not return. What Australia lacks, and for a loooooooong time, is an inspirational leader. Frankly, there is no breathing poitician that inspires me .
As an aside, what the liberals AND labor need to do is make rhe minor parties irrelevent .
AC merging with family first was not done wisely. I didn’t join AC to be in a closed-minded family party. I believe that a better system can never be designed (as failure of every “year 0” experiment has confirmed), but must be obtained by carefully adjusting what we already have. Families are important and the gov’t must not deliberately attack them, as has happened so often, but they should not be the centre of a political party’s universe. E.g. I want families protected, but I also want sex workers protected and free from both pimps and government intimidation. I think a great many are getting the impression that AC is only for religious mum, dad and kitchen sink, and not for the rest of us who want freedom and individual rights and responsibility rather than leftist social design. This can be fixed, but it needs to fixed or else AC will indeed go nowhere.
My understanding was that Cory was gathering together a party of conservatives, that’s all. When he launched the NSW division, over in Arncliffe, he was at pains to point out it wasn’t a ‘Christian’ organisation, but more the true base of the Liberal Party.
He also pointed out that it wasn’t his party, or a personality-based one, but rather one based on conservative principles. There was a hope that the members would agree with the bulk of those principles, but that one was at liberty to disagree with some. On that basis, I found no problem with their embracing Family First.
If they could find a place for me with my set of views, then why not those from Family First?
Well said Warty, I agree.
Thank you Warty for introducing the word pizzazz as a necessary colourful attribute of an Australian political leader. Jim Molan has it and at this stage I regret to say Andrew Hastie, as he appears on the Bolt program, does not. Tony Abbott does not have it, and his seminary training may be responsible for his lack of consultation [think PPL and knighthoods,and Middle Eastern refugees – 7000 Syrians into SW Sydney in one lot].
Scot Morrison has some colour in his personality but is somewhat obnoxious so Liberals might just have to hold their nose and vote for the Party that could never be as bad as Labor/Greens.
BD
You charge TA with Lack of consultation but even though I can’t be absolutely certain that is the truth or just some story made up by his political enemies to justify their bastardry, my view is so what!? I’m in two minds about the PPL, I don’t care two hoots about the Knighthoods (in case we’ve forgotten, last time I had a look we were still a Monarchy and our Queen still has a right to bestow honours on the advice of her Prime Minister) and as far as the 7000 Syrians go, most were persecuted Christians. Now in regard to that last point, on the weekend I had a lunch in a shop run by Middle Eastern Christians and here’s the rub. All over their shopfront in bright colours were the words “He is Risen” and as you entered the store, paintings of brightly coloured Easter eggs and a sign wishing all customers a “Happy Easter” and all this in a area which is a hot bed of the Muslim faith and a source of would be jihadists.
What’s my point? After coming here to escape persecution, they have been entrepreneurial (there were about 15 people working in this store cooking, serving at the counter and waiting at the tables and the store was packed) and they are courageous and not ashamed of the spiritual, philosophical and ethical traditions that have given some very few communities in the world, the best standard of living (both material and non-material) ever known. I’d be more than happy to have persecuted white, South African farmers as well as brown skinned, Middle Easterners.
Why do we need “pizzazz”? It’s a very poor substitute for substance and given the one lonely voice making any noise and sense on the Conservative side of politics, he hardly lacks substance. A fool can wear a crown, but only a true leader controls the debate agenda.
For the life of me, I can’t think of any current Australian leader replete with pizzazz (quite a strong term). Jim is colourful and a welcome addition to the Liberal Party, though I’d be happier still were he to join the ACs.
Tony Abbott is your likeable rugby bugger sort of chap, with his swaggering gait and his fumbling, bumbling speeches, but he’s honest. Andrew Hastie is as straight as a die, certainly not a hail-fellow-well-met type, and few true conservatives are. Just imagine Craig Kelly trying to perform a seduction scene as a stand in for Richard Gere: it wouldn’t pass the pub test or any sort of test.
A Red Belly Black ‘has some colour’ but Scott Morrison, as a faux conservative, is nevertheless reptilian to the underbelly, so that leaves us with honesty, straight forwardness and potential leadership, so give him a few years and perhaps Andrew Hastie has such qualities, but leave the pizzazz to Bill Clinton: Monica could once vouch for him.
Morrison is NOT a faux conservative. He’s a political pragmatist who knows there are more people in the electorate than conservatives and they need to be heard. Read Paul Kelly’s essay about him in “The Weekend Australian”.
‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’
Oh that Morrison ‘may smile and smile and be a villain’. That he might think to sink our economy under loads of debt, and yet advocate ‘smaller government’. That he might flood Birmingham’s Gonski coffers and yet allow the Teachers Federation to further indoctrinate our children rendering the rivers of tax payer money worse than useless, unless it can be shown to benefit two three generations of politically correct automatons, of little or no intellect. Of children prepared to report their parents for thought crimes; children prepared to regurgitate ill-supported arguments on climate change, gender dystopia and controlled speech.
This is the same man banned from Ray Hadley’s 2GB morning show, because he was incapable of answering a single question outside the Liberal Party creed of crud. For him resemblance is sufficient and iron-clad resolution something to be avoided, particularly when initiative is called for, because, alas, the Liberal Party is no longer the thinking person’s party, for those who do, like Ross Cameron, are to be shown the door.
This is a party that has been given over to the rats and the termites determined to eat away at the last residues of conservatism, only to crow about their progressivism as they’re about it. Talk to Payne and Pyne, Zimmerman and Leeser, Birmingham and Bishop and the gnashing of teeth gives way to the nibbling away of conservative principles, rather like the idiot sawing away at the very branch he is sitting on.
Scott Morrison is a senior minister of a sinking ship, with a rat at the helm and sycophants for deck hands.
Keep up the good work Warty, spot on.
This is very interesting for those who want to think outside the Bernardi square: from 3’17” onwards
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK3mm8P21ao
This is very good too!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKLsz5P1JGY
Tony Abbott at this point in time would not leave the Liberal Party. I would say that he sees his duty to the Liberal Party far and above anything else and would fight for it to the end. Unfortunately he may not be able to continue to do that as I would say that he will not be re endorsed for the next election. This is all part of the grand plan for him by Turnbull. Dan Tehan from our electorate has a branch that wrote a letter to the Liberal Party and picked up by Niki Sava for a piece in the Australian which advocated for his removal. Dan Tehan got a promotion. Funny that. So that is what I think will happen. What Tony Abbott does then Is anyone’s guess, but I don’t think he would run as an Independent or for the Australian Conservatives. It will be at that point that the Liberal Party will lose its base. Joy Heath.
Abbott is yesterday’s news. Time to move on, folks.
I agree Jody. That does not mean that Tony Abbott should be disendorsed as the candidate for the next election, it just means we should be focusing on promoting the Liberal platform and showing how pathetic are Labor’s policy and those promoting them. The election is next year for God’s sake. You wouldn’t think so when you listen to Andrew Bolt and the others who leave the Labor and the Greens alone most of the time and spend their time rueing Tony’s demise and running down the Liberals. Guys and gals on Fox – focus on the enemy in an even handed journalistic way and not on the Conservatives whom you profess to like.
Yes, it’s pathetic this hankering after Tony – the same man caught like a deer in the headlights because he listened to his critics and was catatonic. His day is gone but he should remain if he so wishes. One cannot help wondering if there isn’t a better gig for a man who was a Rhodes Scholar and who probably earns less as a back-bencher than my son does as a senior adviser!! He can’t let go, unlike Costello who walked away from defeat with dignity, and into a better job.
For anyone who thinks Morrison is not a conservative please be reminded that he did not vote for same sex marriage and openly said he was opposed to it. Consequently, he abstained from voting. That’s no mealy mouthed progressive eager for the electorate’s approval.
Voting ‘No’ with regards to SSM, though admirable, is not the only criteria for being a conservative. Swinging with the times, the essence of Paul Kelly’s article is certainly not a conservative quality. Quite the contrary. The trend today is towards the progressive, and the Liberal Party insists on being propelled by their imagined electorate, leaving people like me to find an alternative.
Cut the elevated terminology from Paul Kelly’s article, the one you hold up as the ‘gold standard’ . . . what it actually says is that Morrison blows with the wind, and yet is called a pragmatist. Machiavelli, on the other hand, was a pragmatist with gonads, whilst Morrison needs a magnifying glass.
Now, Tony’s ‘captain’s pick’ regarding Prince Philip was more a hilarious misjudgement, but closely examine the reasons for his being unable to get 18c through parliament, and those behind the Syrian influx and some of the other poor decisions laid at his feet. Look at the composition of a thoroughly treacherous party room, something we’ve grown to learn a lot more about post black hand gang, and then you have to be deaf to continue the vendetta. Look at a Tony freed from the restraints of leadership and you’ll see a true conservative. Paul Kelly is nobody’s yard stick. Clever though he is.
At the deep heart of Tony Abbott is a nastiness that you don’t see in terribly many politicians. Scratch beneath the surface and there’s huge aggression and pugilism. I’ll never forget the vicious comment to a late-arrive Nicola Roxon at the National Press Club, sotto voce. I never liked her but his comments were offensive and, above all, DEFENSIVE.
You’ll not see that aggression and viciousness with most of those on the front bench of the Coalition. And to suggest that politicians are “treacherous”!! Goodness me; I’ve never heard such a thing before.
I think Kelly’s piece was very good, covering all the bases. If you’re looking for perfection in a politician, good luck!!
Jody, go to the internet and refresh your memory. Nicola Roxon was not the ‘late-arrive’. Tony Abbott apologised for arriving late from Melbourne to a live Sydney telecast, but Nocola Roxon, who had no trouble arriving on time because she did not have to attend any meetings in Melbourne, kept nagging Tony, saying that he could have made it on time if he had wanted to. He answered her with a curt “bullshit”. That word is anything but offensive to fair minded people who understand the impossibility of trying to be in two places at once and then getting nagged by someone who had the luxury of being in Sydney and attending a telecast IN Sydney.
Australian Conservatives didn’t do as well as expected this time – and you’ll recall that ALA didn’t do as well as expected last time. This is hardly surprising: in both cases they are seeking the votes of older, established voters, who are less fickle than their opponents.
each election sees the primary vote of the major parties drop, but changing the system is a slow arduous task. However, the tipping point has been reached: more than 25% of a ‘safe’ electorate voting for minor parties allows a preference crash to tip the incumbent. Once that becomes normal, the major parties lose their duopoly, and have to compete on even terms – where they will not survive.
As T.S Eliot said in his Preludes: ‘And evening newspapers, and eyes. Assured of certain certainties . . . ‘. The MSM, not unlike the fallibility of human vision, nevertheless like to deal in certainties, and there we may require months, if not years to understand what happened in South Australia; yet there are forces on both sides that are keen to see the failure of the ACs, just as they were with the ALA. Why? Because they are not mainstream. For those of the establishment we apparently understand, with all their biases, manipulations, their deceptions: we’ve forgotten what it is to stand on principle.
Paul Kelly, in his The Australian article yesterday, made a virtue of Scott Morrison ditching traditional Liberal Party thrift and small government in favour of pragmatism. I would like to remind him of an old fashioned expression ‘being mealy-mouthed’. A more recent coinage might being using ‘weasel words’. Paul is an adept.
Unfortunately the ALA began to consume itself, post July 2016 elections when the senior executive ‘disappeared’ to lick its wounds. Their website claimed they were taking time off to deal with an upcoming Halal court case, where they were being sued by the Muslim head of Halal.They never recovered and two of their senate candidates went over to Cory’s mob. Communication is key to electoral success.
The MSM, Paul Kelly and the majority of those in the main political parties ridicule what they call ‘populism’, without fully understanding what the subterranean movement actually is: a whole bunch of people fed up with the falsehoods underlying business as usual. Many of those people will move in and out of minor parties, because they look to messianic people to sort out their problems, rather than taking the steps to fully educate themselves and take whatever steps needed to ‘grow’ a minor party into one of substance. I suspect the ACs will eventually create such a break-through, unlike the personality-based One Nation. The more intelligent old farts attracted to the ACS have seen a lot of stuff, and have every reason to be despairing of the Coalition. Their principles are no different to those of the Coalition, but they are not prepared to jettison them in the way Turnbull and his sycophants are.
Just a few thoughts.
Abbott is probably the most maligned politician of the last two decades. Yet he is the most thoughtful politician and the most effective fighter in the Commonwealth Parliament. Who else would any of you nominate as fulfilling those roles? The non-conservatives know this about Abbott and that is why they fear him. His utterances draw immediate condemnation from the current crop of so-called Liberal leaders as well as from the media. Yes Jody if you are looking for perfection in a politician, good luck. So don’t! Instead, appreciate the positives. As John Stone said in The Australian on 26 February in his opinion piece “Trust Tony Abbott to tell it like it is about issues that matter most”:
“Last week Tony Abbott delivered the most outstanding speech, on immigration and other related topics, by any politician for many years. When did you last hear from an Australian politician any speech that calmly and analytically set out to initiate a vitally needed public debate? Ironically, the last one in my memory was also delivered (in London) by the same Tony Abbott last October, dealing then with the “global warming” religion and the associated erroneous and hugely costly energy policies from which we all suffer.”
In that article Stone was scathing of the response of Abbott’s Liberal Party colleagues and particularly that of Morrison:
“Among several competitors, the most shameful response came from Scott Morrison. He relied on faulty analysis and, far worse, erroneous claims. He should know that in the lead-up to the 2015 budget, Abbott pressed (in the expenditure review committee, of which Morrison was a member) for a cut in the permanent immigration program.
He should also recall that, after the 2013 election, when Morrison was minister for immigration, Abbott cut the most costly permanent immigration component, the refugee and humanitarian program, from the 20,000 level to which Julia Gillard had raised it, back to 13,750 — a truly courageous decision that, predictably, brought down the usual furies on Abbott’s head.”
I agree with Warty’s assessment of Morrison. My impression also is that Morrison is out of his depth as Treasurer and lacks the will and ability to withstand the ill-thought-out interferences of his leader, at least not until after the public damage has been done.
Jody, you say that the Coalition has been given the gift of differentiation and you appear to be hanging your hopes on that. Differentiation has always been there but was minimized under the current crop of Liberal leaders. Where is the evidence also that the current leadership team has the will or the ability to prosecute the differentiation? For example, how effective were Turnbull and others in countering Labor’s claims at the last election and how effective have Turnbull and Morrison been in responding to Labor’s proposals for, in effect, the double taxation of dividends?
I understand that Abbott is uninterested in obtaining leadership of the Party unless he is approached by a majority of his colleagues. Who can blame him?
I think Abbott realizes that, as the Australian Conservatives and ALA have found out, it is very difficult to start a new political party and have it achieve electoral success, especially in the short term. This is particularly so when you lack the means of communicating widely. The AC and ALA seem to have difficulty in obtaining media exposure. I do not recall the ABC even mentioning the ALA before the last federal election and I understand that The Australian refused to accept advertisements from ALA.
Warty, I just hope that the ACS will give their preferences to Liberal and National parties at the next election rather than to Labor or the Greens. It may get the present government over the line and at the same time make the government more aware of the concerns of us old farts, as you so aptly describe us. I am all for compulsory voting, but compulsory preferencing leaves me cold. Why should I have to vote for a party whose policies I detest (like the Greens) which means those who vote for them actually have two votes if say Liberal gets a majority in a seat and Labor comes second, but the Greens preferences gets Labor over the line.
Unless Labor were to become thoroughly conservative, you can rest assured the AC preferences would ALWAYS go to the Coalition. Mr Bernardi has stated as much on more than one occasion. Batman was different, in that there was only Left and extreme Left, and it was felt the AC preferences helped Labor get over the line.
Thanks. That’s reassuring.
You are right Len.
Our pretend conservative here hates Tony with malice. She loves Turnbull, hates Trump and anyone who dares challenges her proven wrong opinions.
I reckon she had a touch of the ‘reds’ so visious she is in her condemnations.
They now border on manically although as Mr Number 30 nears his end she’s gone all ‘flip flop’ on him.
Raise the name of Peta Credlin and she really puts up the hysterics.
It’s all become rather pathetic.
From her ravings it’s obvious she would rather have Shorten than Abbott.
Quite pathetic to see a ‘self claimed’ conservative throwing in the towel in such a manner.
I like Abbott would rather fight than roll over, so do most conservatives I know.
I have to laugh today reading that one of Cory’s Australian Conservative contenders has defected to the Liberal Party. Won’t be long now…!! They are washed up. Those clinging onto the Cory hope are going to be sadly disappointed. He doesn’t have the chops; he should have stayed with the Liberals where he could have done some real good. But a ‘grudge’ party was never going to cut the mustard.
Keith has been on the schnapps again, I see!!
Jody, how can somebody who has absorbed so much from Jordan Peterson and Steven Pinker be so wrong, and so nasty towards somebody like Tony Abbott?
Abbott is not perfect, but I always remember the oft quoted tale/adage concerning Abbott and Rudd – those who have never met Rudd love him, those who have met Abbott personally like him, conversely those who have met Rudd immediately recognise that the media had it wrong and that he is/was a nasty narcissist while those who have never met Abbott are the only people who hate him. Churchill was similarly reviled by the media of his day but still wound up in saving western civilisation, Abbott might still have a decisive role to play in Australian politics yet.
So wrong about Abbott? You have the access to his secret self, by the sound of it. I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed; he just another expedient politician. I not only link Peterson and Pinker, but also Niall Ferguson, Dalrymple, the Weinstein brothers, Ben Shapiro, Mark Steyn, Joe Rogan and Dave Rubin.
Well I never – just who is the nasty one.
Ignore it White Dove, it is best.