Business Spectator’s Robert Gottliebsen (“Gotti”) has today posted some curious analysis attempting to explain why Tony Abbott is on the nose with voters:
Tony Abbott is the best Opposition leader Australia has ever seen but he has been too successful. First he toppled Kevin Rudd as prime minister, helped by the shortcomings of Rudd himself.
After that victory Abbott had to fight an election against Australia’s first female prime minister… But once again Abbott destroyed a prime minister…
However I believe there is a sense of guilt among many Australians that an elected prime minister, and then our first female prime minister, were deposed in such a brutal way. That guilt is not being taken out on Rudd but rather on Tony Abbott.
Tony Abbott has a very detailed plan for Australia but has announced only parts of it…
It’s not going to be easy to mount a campaign that converts Tony Abbott from ‘the female prime minister destroyer’ into the person with a vision for small entrepreneurs and their staff and for the whole country. Attacks make much better television and headlines. Rudd is far better at promoting a vision than Abbott and is now taking some of Abbott’s lines.
Marketing of the Abbott vision should have been started months ago but instead all efforts were concentrated on removing the first Australian female prime minister.
It has backfired.
Let’s not kid ourselves, but Tony Abbott is struggling in the polls for one reason: Tony Abbott. Sure, he’s proven to be a highly successful attack dog, but when it comes to projecting a vision for Australia, he has so far come up short.
To date, Abbott has adopted a “small target” approach and focussed on slogans like “stopping the boats, abolishing the carbon and mining taxes, and returning the Budget to surplus”, rather than developing an overarching narrative. Unlike Rudd, he has failed to acknowledge the significant risks facing the economy as the mining boom unwinds, and in the process has given the impression that he has no plan for Australia. His failure to front-up to the Press Club debate with Rudd last week also suggested that he had no plan beyond campaigning on negativity, and backfired badly.
If Abbott does lose the upcoming Federal Election, he will have no one to blame but himself. Basing the Coalition’s entire campaign on Labor’s failings was never going to cut it. Voters instead require a vision for the future.
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