Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I'm Daniel James and you're listening to 7am.
Chapter 2: What is Tony Abbott's role in the current Liberal Party politics?
Tony Abbott is back at the centre of Liberal Party politics. The former Prime Minister has been elected unopposed as Federal Liberal Party President, a role that sounds administrative but carries real political weight and a moment of deep trouble for the Coalition. The Liberals are watching voters drift to One Nation, while Abbott argues the answer is to take the fight directly to Labor.
But his return sharpens a deeper question inside the party, about whether the Liberals can rebuild by reviving the politics of the Abbott era, or whether that only deepens the crisis they're trying to escape.
Today, Press Gallery veteran Paul Bongiorno on Tony Abbott's comeback, the future of the Liberal Party and how the government is trying to turn the opposition's crisis into a test of its own authority.
Chapter 3: How is the Liberal Party responding to the rise of One Nation?
It's Saturday, June 6th. Paul, this week, One Nation became the most popular political party in the country. It's obviously bad news for the coalition, which hasn't been very effective at fending off Hanson's party. But now, former PM Tony Abbott has put his hand up to be the white knight that saves the Liberals as party president. Paul, is Abbott the answer?
Well, I can tell you that the conservatives in the Liberal Party certainly believe he is and certainly have reached out to him.
Chapter 4: What strategies does Tony Abbott propose to combat Labor?
But mind you, I believe he reached out to them as well. What we should keep in mind is that the so-called right-wing liberals or conservative liberals are dominant in the National Party structure. So he always had the numbers. And it was quite interesting to see that
The other potential saviour, Alexander Downer, who all his life has been a very conservative liberal, well, the moderates were behind Downer. But in the end, Downer pulled out and everybody said, look, we've got to give Abbott ago, we know he'll be like a dog with a bone. He's a brutally effective communicator.
Chapter 5: Can Tony Abbott effectively lead the Liberal Party out of crisis?
And let's face it, our backs are to the wall. So basically, what they were counting on was the fact that Tony Abbott won in a landslide from opposition in 2013 against the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government. But that great victory, which was a landslide victory, said, well, look, he knows how to win government.
They maybe forgot he didn't quite know how to hang on to government, but that's not quite their problem at the moment.
Abbott's indicated that his focus will be on Labor rather than One Nation.
Obviously, we are in a degree of competition with other parties and voices on the centre-right, but in the end, our opponent, our enemy, if you like, is a really bad Labor government, a really bad green-left Labor government.
Is that the right strategy at this point, Paul?
Well, there have been nine polls since the budget. And in those nine polls, the coalition has gone backwards.
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Chapter 6: What challenges does the Liberal Party face in the upcoming elections?
In three polls this week, the coalition's primary vote was just 20%. And what we've seen is, for the first time this week, one nation in two polls even had more support than Labor.
So the strategy that's been employed since the budget by Angus Taylor and the coalition to go hard to attack Labor, to talk about broken promises, to talk about how damaging it will be to Australia as we know it, all that sort of language, If anything, it's fed into one nation rather than fed into the coalition. All of this simply isn't working.
And Paul Kelly, the venerable Paul Kelly in The Australian, said that basically there's defeatism in the Liberals and the Nationals with some of them saying, oh, we should form an alliance with one nation, forgetting that one nation is part of the existential threat to the Liberals and the Nationals for a very good reason.
If the primary vote stays where it is and where it's been for a while now, then the Liberal or National candidate will come in behind One Nation. And therefore, their preferences will elect a One Nation candidate at the expense of a Liberal. It's like cutting their own throats. And there's a bit of an example of this.
Even though the Nationals did extremely well in Farah, they still didn't get a majority in their own right. They needed preferences to get over the line. And there is an argument, and
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Chapter 7: How does the rise of One Nation impact Labor's political strategy?
People within the parliamentary party are having this argument that had the Libs and the Nats preference, for example, the leading independent... Maybe that would have pushed her over the line, but it certainly would have sent the message that, look, if you're inclined to our way of politics, then don't vote One Nation.
Instead, by preferencing One Nation in the way they did, they helped it get up. And I don't like to use the word legitimize. It's a democracy and they're a legitimate player. But it certainly, as it were, authorised One Nation as a mainstream option. And this is a tactic that Abbott seems happy with, that when you analyse it a bit further, does seem to be a recipe for even greater disaster.
I've often wondered, Paul, about party presidents of all the spaces. I mean, how much power does Abbott have as Liberal Party president and what does the party president actually do?
Well, they make sure the party is organised, that its branches are there, that it's fundraising, that it's able to back up the parliamentary party. In fact, Robert Menzies, when he founded the Liberals, he wanted to make sure that the organisational wing...
unlike the structure formerly of the Labor Party, was subservient to the parliamentary party, couldn't direct it on anything, and was there merely to serve what the parliamentary leader and the parliamentary party wanted. However, what we do know that a party president, and let's just talk Liberals for the moment, has the cachet of being leader of the organisation,
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Chapter 8: What is the significance of the party president's role in the Liberal Party?
When the organisation is in such dire straits and they turn to someone like Abbott, a former prime minister, a political pugilist of some note, it's clear they're saying, look, we want you to be the president and probably lift us, do more than just make sure we're fundraising.
Look, I don't expect to be in the media every day, but on the other hand, I do think that my presence now in this senior role... will demonstrate to people who might have been sceptical that the Liberal Party is fair dinkum about abolishing net zero, fair dinkum about cutting back mass migration.
And the danger here is that in making someone like Abbott the president, they're creating another focus other than the parliamentary leader.
There will be some public facing to this role rather than it just being an administrative role.
Look, the party president is the organisational leader, not the political leader. But I don't think there's ever been a party president who's taken a vow of silence and I'm certainly not going to start.
Do you think Tony Abbott will be satisfied with just being party president, or could we see him trying to make a full political comeback and return to Parliament? There's been musings pulled.
Well, it's in his blood. There's no doubt about that. He has been asked this question, and he's given the impression that if he ever does make a comeback, which is not on his mind now, it'd be after the next election. I guess one of his problems would be finding a seat where the voters would actually vote for him, given that he lost.
He was the first to lose a rock-solid Liberal seat to a Teal Independent. He knows how to do that.
Coming up, how One Nation's rise is changing the calculation for Labor as well.
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