He sure ain’t going away:
Tony Abbott has delivered a stinging rebuke to the Turnbull Government sharpening his own vision for the country and politics in Australia, promising he is “in no hurry to leave public life because we need strong liberal conservative voices now, more than ever”.
In an address delivered in Brisbane this morning, Mr Abbott urged the conservative faithful to “stay on course and fight the good fight”, and quoted former Prime Minister John Howard in saying “while compromise is necessary in politics, conviction is the foundation of success”.
In an address to conservative think-tank the Institute of Public Affairs, the former prime minister fired a warning shot at the direction of the Turnbull government since the unveiling of the May budget which has been criticised by conservative commentators as being “Labor-lite.”
…Addressing energy policy, Mr Abbott called for a moratorium on new wind-farms, a freeze on the renewable energy target at its current level of 15 per cent and the construction of another “big coal-fired power station.”
Mr Abbott also said there should be a stop on further subsidised renewable power and a freeze placed on the RET while urging the government to be prepared to “go it alone” in building a coal-fired power station “as soon as possible”.
He also called for the government to “legislate swiftly” for a referendum to be held concurrently with the next election to reform the operation of the Senate and what he labels a crisis of Australian democracy.
Mr Abbott uses the speech to strengthen his call for a slowdown on immigration, arguing it would take “downward pressure off wages and upward pressure off house prices” while complementing the proposed citizenship reforms to encourage greater integration into Australian society.
..Mr Abbott also returned to the theme of budget repair, arguing that Australia has a spending problem rather than a revenue problem. He said it is possible to persuade the public to accept hard decisions.
“The best way to get federal spending under control, and to end the intergenerational theft of sustained deficits is to avoid all new spending other than on national security or economic infrastructure,” he says.
Riposte:
- the energy policy is both wrong and dumb;
- the senate could do with a clean out;
- immigration cuts are good policy to take pressure off both house prices and wages;
- budget repair is a good idea but it is a revenue problem. More to the point, it’s an economic structure problem that Mr Abbott has proven he does not understand.
How would it stack up for voters? Sadly I suspect the Coalition vote would fall. Although One Nation would be wiped out, the village idiot energy policy would lose the centre and Budget repair back in Abbott’s hands will terrify households coast to coast.
Still, a centrist Coalition Government that cherry-picked the immigration policy could challenge Labor.
