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Permanent dysfunctionalism: Australia's leadership disease : Comments
By Binoy Kampmark, published 10/2/2015'Removing a first-term incumbent leader should have been taboo after the turmoil that followed Labor's decision to make such a move against Kevin Rudd.' Peter van Onselen, The Australian
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Notwithstanding that time after time Abbott and the PMO have seemingly choreographed shambles, I thought perhaps I'm so partisan that I was overdoing it.
However, recent events, culminating in a spill motion less than halfway through Abbott's tenure as Prime Minister - unthinkable when he was swept to office in September, 2013 - seem to support my view.
Abbott's odd "captain's calls", his embarrassingly vacuous countenance in the Prime Ministerial role, his discomfort in the presence of other leaders and dignitaries, his ridiculous and repetitive sloganeering (now with the addition of "consultative and collegial"), his mendacious style of leadership...all these things led to the recent spill motion.
He's an A1 sledger and the adversarial role in Opposition is where he shone. Those qualities, however, have not translated into good leadership.
Less than 24 hours after pledging to begin "good government", Abbott's team are already embroiled in yet another debacle, playing semantics on the SA submarine tender, Senators and Ministers making fools of themselves attempting to play with words so as to obscure the latest round of what was and wasn't offered by Abbott when he was making pre-spill motion overtures.
Smacks of the same old ineptitude that has plagued this govt since the budget was delivered last year.