Hurting Your Own Cause

Marriage equality protester Ali Hogg caused a scene in Melbourne over the weekend when she confronted Tony Abbott at a cafe as he dined with a journalist.

Ms. Hogg, with the help of several supporters, shouted slogans at the Opposition Leader, accusing him of bigotry and homophobia.  The activists continued to chant outside the cafe's window after being forcibly removed by staff.

It does the gay marriage movement no favours when protesters act in this manner, ambushing targets and disrupting the lives of bystanders (Mr. Abbott was not the only patron present in the cafe).  Far from spreading sympathy for her cause, if anything Ms. Hogg will have hardened the hearts of anyone who was present over the weekend.

This incident betrays the immaturity and closed-mindedness of many gay marriage activists.  Those who speak out with the loudest voices, forming the public image of the movement, often seem to be those who have devoted the least effort to understanding any positions that may differ from their own.  In Ms. Hogg's opinion, anyone who disagrees with her must be a homophobic bigot.

You do not change minds and win hearts by bullying dissenters and rudely disrupting peoples' lives. Ms. Hogg is promoting a good, worthy cause, but her juvenile behaviour over the weekend could only ever have been counterproductive.

Milne's First Foray

Christine Milne has quickly dipped her toes into the already thriving business of blaming Tony Abbott for everything that ails the Labor government.

New Greens leader Christine Milne says Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is to blame for creating an environment where Labor feels it is locked into delivering a budget surplus in the May budget even though economic circumstances have changed.

Have the Liberals been keen to highlight the government's fiscal excesses over the last four years? Yes. That is the opposition's job, after all.

But the reason that Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan are so politically wedded to the delivery of a budget surplus in May is very simple. They promised it. Over and over again.

When the government's fiscal credibility was thrown into jeopardy by billions of wasted stimulus dollars, Labor told the electorate that it would prove itself.  The budget would be returned to surplus in 2012-13, and that would put the government's economic credentials beyond doubt.

The government will be judged by the measure of performance that Wayne Swan himself has repeatedly laid out. Tony Abbott did not promise the Australian people that Labor would deliver this surplus. Labor did.

Abbott and Homosexuality

A fascinating report in the Australian today reveals that one of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's sisters, Ms. Christine Forster, declared her homosexuality four years ago.

In 1992, Forster returned with her husband to Australia where they raised four children a stone's throw from her elderly parents on Sydney's north shore.  Her home served as a meeting place for gatherings of the extended family.  To outsiders it seemed a comfortable, conventional suburban existence, but in 2008 Forster made the agonising decision to come out as a gay woman.  She'd met Virginia Edwards when they were parents with sons the same age at the local parish school.  They forged a friendship then fell in love.

Mr. Abbott is of course a strident defender of traditional marriage, and he is a favourite target for ridicule over the issue of homosexuality.  His Q&A appearance during the last election campaign highlighted the awkwardness of this debate for Mr. Abbott in the public arena:

The questioner in this video openly accuses the Opposition Leader of harbouring fear and ignorance of homosexuals, and of denying them proper dignity and respect.  Host Tony Jones rather smugly suggests that if only Mr. Abbott 'got to know' some gay men, he could change his opinion.

We now know that the issue of homosexuality was much closer to home for this man than anyone realised at the time.  Questioned by the Australian's Kate Legge, Mr. Abbott recounts his own personal reaction to his sister's decision:

Abbott says he was "absolutely flabbergasted" by the end of Forster's longstanding marriage because he'd always thought it was "a fantastic partnership".  But his sister felt he understood the turbulent and distressing crisis she was going through.  He listened sympathetically.  He offered counsel when it was sought and he didn't make judgements.

"These things happen," Abbott tells me.  "The marriage ended.  For Chris it was replaced by something else that is marvellous.  She has regrets but she did something brave, authentic, something she felt had to be done.  I can respect that even if I can't in every sense understand it... I've come to the view over the years that the only side you can take is that which tries to maintain relationships.  Getting judgemental in ways which damage relationships does no one any good.

It is impossible to entirely comprehend the ordeal that Ms. Forster would have undergone as a result of her decision to come out, particularly within the context of an intensely Catholic family and community.  Mr. Abbott, his wife Margie and their three daughters were the first members of Christine's extended family to welcome her and her partner as a couple into their home.

The Opposition Leader has also worked hard for four years to keep his sister out of the public spotlight, despite the fact that his relationship with her could have helped to soften his image as an outdated social conservative.

In 2010 he persuaded a newspaper editor to drop a story about Forster's sexuality out of concern for his sister and her family.  Their welfare has dictated his response above any vanity for his own image.  Suffering insinuations that he remains quarantined from the breadth of humanity was a small price to shoulder.

This episode serves to highlight the deeper character of a man who is too broadly caricatured in the arena of public discourse.  It is reminiscent of an earlier controversy in 2005, which has largely been forgotten since Mr. Abbott assumed his party's leadership.

Abbott's girlfriend from university days had got pregnant in 1976 and they'd both assumed he was responsible.  They'd remained friends, stayed in touch and often wondered what would happen if the son they'd put up for adoption ever made contact. When he did, the then Liberal minister did not flinch.  He supported his former lover and welcomed the 'son' into his family.  Abbott's wife Margie was magnificent during the drama.  And when DNA tests later revealed Abbott was not in fact the father, he responded with sensitivity to this twist of fate.

Mr. Abbott to this very day suffers, at least among a significant portion of the public, from a lingering impression that he is a harsh man, lacking in those most basic human values of compassion and tolerance.  He is often caricatured as an unyielding right-wing dogmatist, and is frequently labelled (among other things) xenophobic, racist and homophobic.

Yet an objective appraisal of the evidence leads one to conclude that Tony Abbott is in fact a man of immense character.  Whatever one may think of his policies, or of his rhetorical style, Mr. Abbott is universally acclaimed by those who have known him as a fundamentally decent person.

All of this is not to say that he would necessarily make a good Prime Minister.  Policy, as much as character, would be the determining factor in that regard.  I personally disagree with Mr. Abbott on the issue of gay marriage, and I find it hard to even comprehend the reasoning behind his position on the matter.

But it becomes much more difficult to demonise the man when we are granted such insights into the realm of his personal life.

Who do you trust?

Whoever advises our Prime Minister on her daily media lines needs to be fired.  Immediately.

Because today, in yet another display of amazingly weak political judgement, Ms. Gillard through her own rhetoric fed the Liberal Party exactly the lines it will need to manufacture the next election's most potent advertisements:

"Who do you trust to manage the economy in the interests of working people? Who do you trust to understand the needs of the future and the building of that future economy? Who do you trust to spread the benefits of the mining boom to make sure they are shared by all Australians?"

Rest assured, the Liberals will not be playing the entirety of that quote in their election ads.  Just four words will do.  They would even make a good bumper sticker.

"Who do you trust?"

The ad that could propel Tony Abbott's party onto the Treasury Benches will be beautifully simple.  It will open with the Prime Minister asking over and over:  "Who do you trust?"

It will then cut to the following:

The ad will then finish by silently asking the viewer:  "Who do you trust?"

Julia Gillard can hardly complain.  Her political death warrant will be served using her very own words.

Abbott the Ravager

Prior to the Labor leadership ballot in February, Kevin Rudd said the following:

"And they are the millions of Australians who depend on us to form a Labor government and to prevent Mr. Abbott from inflicting on Australia the ravages of the most extreme right wing government that the country will have ever seen."

It is remarkable how often you hear this sort of thing from Labor frontbenchers - you would think that the government's foremost raison d'être is to prevent Tony Abbott from becoming Prime Minister.  Aside from say, actually governing.

But in any case, for a man who is so often accused of being a rabid right winger, and of secretly harbouring an intense desire to reinstate Work Choices, Tony Abbott really does seem to lack a deeply felt, instinctive sympathy for liberal economics.

Consider the Opposition Leader's pet paid parental leave scheme, which he resolutely clings to despite dissatisfied rumblings from within his party room.

The pure argument, from the perspective of classical liberals, would posit that parents should ensure they are able to support a child financially before deciding to have one.  It would argue that it is unfair on those who make a conscious decision to be childless that they are forced to fund the choices of others.

Is it a nice idea, that a new parent should be granted money without labour, simply by virtue of being a parent?  Certainly.

But is it fair?  Too often the word 'fair' is hijacked so that it may be attached to ideas that are simply 'nice'.

In any case, whether you believe a paid parental leave scheme is necessary or nice, Mr. Abbott has proposed a scheme which is far more generous than the government's.  Which, coming from a leader of the Liberal Party, can only mean one thing - Mr. Abbott is, in this instance, sacrificing liberal economics in order to play politics.

Combine this with the report today by Stephanie Peatling that the Opposition Leader is planning to extend the childcare rebate to cover nannies:

One of Mr. Abbott's first acts in a Coalition government would be to ask the Productivity Commission to examine how much it would cost to extend the childcare rebate for in-home-care, such as nannies, in recognition that existing arrangements do not meet the needs of many families.

The idea that it is the government's job to 'meet the needs' of families does not conform with the spirit of economic liberalism any more than Kevin Rudd's stimulus conformed with the spirit of fiscal conservatism.

Our tax system is already littered with measures which are designed to ease the burden on struggling families - many of which are not even means tested.

It would be easy to accuse Mr. Abbott of using these issues in an attempt to gain political advantage, and such a critique would be fair to a point.  Much has been written about the Liberal leader's supposed problem with female voters - is it any coincidence that his most significant breaks from liberal orthodoxy have been on policies which concern women?

On the other hand however, many of the rebates and credits which are designed to help families are actually relics of the last Coalition government.  Were they proposed largely for the purpose of buying votes?  Perhaps.  But there is more to it than that.

John Howard was a Prime Minister who combined liberal economic views with a broader sense of social conservatism.  His underlying worldview emphasised the family unit as an essential building block of society - everything, in Mr. Howard's view, was rooted in family.

Thus Mr. Howard believed in using the powers of the state to protect and encourage the family unit, and this was reflected in his social spending.  Money was spent not on welfare or social justice, but on childcare rebates and the baby bonus.

Tony Abbott is in the same political family as John Howard - economic liberalism tempered by social conservatism.  The former Prime Minister showed all of us that this can be an electorally potent combination.

But Australia is currently in desperate need of a government with genuine fiscal restraint.  Mr. Abbott, should he one day become Prime Minister himself, needs to assemble a team of economic advisors who will be unafraid to reign in their leader's tendency towards conservative social spending.