The Coalition’s media spinners and their friends in the private media have been at great pains to paint their new leader as a man of action who will boldly get things done, with pictures and footage of him speeding around on his bike or bursting out of the surf in his Speedos. This is all well and good if you are impressed by ‘colour and movement’ but beneath the spin is a ruthless right wing ideologue from the Howard years.
It was Abbott who shamelessly attacked the bona fides of the heroic asbestos campaigner Bernie Banton, when Banton was trying to convince Abbott as Health Minister to put a powerful anti cancer drug on the pharmaceutical benefit scheme so making it cheaply available, only a matter of weeks before Banton’s own death.
Abbott was one of the most zealous advocates of WorkChoices when it was introduced and it took only one day as Opposition Leader for him to pledge the return of AWAs. AWAs were the centrepiece of WorkChoices that trashed penalty and overtime rates and removed union right of entry to help members.
Abbott was one also of Howard’s loyal lieutenants in denying the reality of climate change and he has carried on his work blocking the Labor Government’s CPRS legislation. Abbott’s plan relying on carbon storage in soil has its wheels falling off already, with independent analysts finding it more costly and less effective than the Government’s scheme - so much for the man of action image.
With his recent comments about a woman’s natural role in doing the housework, Abbott shows that like Howard, he is mired in nostalgia for the world of fifty years ago, portrayed so well in the television series Mad Men.
No doubt as the election approaches Abbott will try to portray an image as an ‘everyday Joe’ caring for all Australians - everyone’s mate, just as Howard claimed back in 1996.
With a Federal Election on the agenda in 2010 a return to the Liberals would be a disaster for CFMEU members and the community in general.
Don’t be fooled by Abbott. An action man he is not - a dangerous zealot would be a better description.
12 February 2010
