Australia needs Tony

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Could it be that the chaos of Australian public policy is about to serve up a win?

Tony Abbott has dramatically accelerated his war on Malcolm Turnbull. Do not underestimate his chances of winning it. Political destabilisation is an easy game to play. He is clearly backed by a ravening horde of Catholics enraged by education reform.

Assuming Turnbull’s polls begin to fall, as they surely must, then Tony could be set to move a leadership spill on Malcolm in the fourth quarter as Newspolls count down to -30. Who else can it be?

He’ll lose the first spill of course. But he’s only got to secure a decent vote for it to undermine the government further.

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A second ballot in the following three to six months would finish the job.

I have no idea if Tony would see an initial poll honeymoon but the one thing he will immediately do is wipe out One Nation by halving immigration.

The attractions of doing so are immense for a revitalised Abbott Government. It turns the Coalition immediately into the defender of Australian living standards as pressure is taken off services and infrastructure, house prices and wages. It does all of this while protecting negative gearing and positioning Labor as the housing wrecker. Moreover, it shifts the Coalition to an environmentally friendly platform to embarrass the Greens (even despite Abbott’s fondness for coal).

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Nonetheless, it is very likely that the Coalition will be unceremoniously slaughtered at the ballot box next year. It is a rabble.

That sets up the delicious prospect of Labor taking government with immigration already cut and then having to deliver on its promise of negative gearing reform!

Don’t get me wrong. I loath Abbott and his ilk. But policy ambushes, chaos and luck are pretty much all we have left to deliver reform.

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Tony Abbott could inadvertently deliver the great structural reform that Australia needs – addressing the housing imbalance – by turning his wrecking ball onto immigration before being ousted ahead of doing wider harm.

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.