Of course, what Mr Winter sees as strengths might equally be argued as Abbott's weaknesses. There are other clues as to what sort of PM Abbott might make. One is the rabbit caught in the headlights look about him as Rudd surges past him in the polls,, which betrays the image of a man coasting to victory and seeing that snatched from his grasp.

A second clue in the fact that he has surrounded himself with a largely mediocre front bench and stuck with them despite manifest failings on their part. The thought of Morrison and Bishop to name but two holding senior portfolios is dismaying.

Conversely, the most talented and popular front bencher, Turnbull, is kept in a relatively minor portfolio, which speaks volumes about how threatened Abbott is by someone manifestly superior to himself.

One should not forget that Abbott won the leadership by a single vote. Some might argue that this suggests those who know him best had profound reservations at the time. Spending the time since as, to borrow a phrase, a nattering nabob of negativity, has done nothing to allay those fears.

Dear o dear, this is such a wrong-headed article!

Surely what we need to be concentrating on is policies. The character and ability of the leader is far and away a lesser thing.

As much as I detest Rudd, his overall policy position is preferable to Abbott’s….. and that is surely the most important thing to consider here.

This is one of the most insightful articles about Tony Abbott I have read so far.

"No doubt that Tony Abbott's determined focus gets him down the highway on a bike, or holding his message to small simplistic chants like 'Stop the Boats' or 'Cash splash', but as a leader he lacks warmth and the ability to engage across boundaries. This inability to connect with people is arguably his greatest achilles heel..."

Yes indeed.
Whatever you may think of Rudd, he certainly engages more effectively with the community, like Hawke and Howard were able to do.

The 'quality' I dislike the most in Abbott is his aggression.
When things don't go his way in discussions with journalists, I have been embarrassed watching his furious silences and angry stance.

But Ludwick is right in that it should be the policies that decide the next election, and the Liberal policies are so far very thin on the ground.

Abbott reminds me of Gillard: someone who, potentially, may be promoted far beyond his stock of capabilities.

Of course, Turnbull is far superior to Abbott just as Rudd, even with his flaws, was far superior to Gillard.

Depose Abbott and put Turnbull in his place and give the Australian electorate a real contest to engage with!

P.S. Of course, given my druthers, I would rather a contest over ideas rather than another bosses vs workers confrontation!

Good article Graham; encapsulates my feelings about Abbott to a tee.

I was very frustrated when personality issues resulted in the deposing of Gillard when over all she did a very good job of keeping her team on task and getting reforms through. But the reality is that these days personality does matter in leadership and it will be Abbott's undoing.

Even more important is character; Gillard is I think of good character but Abbott is duplicitous, ruthless and negative; he'll never make a good PM.

Turnbull waits in the wings - a far better communicator than Abbott and more intelligent. Yes, if Government were a corporation he would definitely be leader. I wonder about factions in the Libs. Why has Abbott attained and kept power thus far? 'Factional'machinations are the only explanation as far as I can see (albeit more covert than Labor's). Neo-conservatives(Abbott's camp) vs small L Libs (Turnbull?

As I see it, all real leaders are arrogant. They also have incorruptible core beliefs and are not easily swayed. Not a problem unless extreme; and or, the Leader fails to consult!
For mine, Tony Abbott has displayed vision, with an enunciated plan to develop the north.
You know, that place where most of our rain falls.
He is also prepared to go to a double dissolution, if the senate tries to block or steal the people's mandate!
I'M here to help, Kevin Rudd, failed that test and a few others, as a so-called leader, facing the greatest moral challenge of the century!
I believe Tony Abbott can win, but he will need to start trickling out fully costed policies very soon, or invoke growing suspicion that he really is hiding something; like a newer version of work choices?
We need to remember that Tony Abbott only leads with the "permission" of the party room, and a one vote majority!
If he goes too far with his "Leadership", they may well withdraw that permission.
We do have two precedents for dismissing sitting PM's.
One where supply was denied, forcing the Governor General to use his reserve powers, and other, where the party removed a Leader, who reportedly suffered the equivalent of a political nervous breakdown?
I believe the coalition will win, if only by a narrow majority?
Which would then make it difficult to exercise any so-called mandate.
And the greens can be counted on to bend over backwards, to block much of the coalition's policies; be it stopping the boats, or undoing some of the most extreme measures, forced on Labour by the recalcitrant, power hungry greens.
Who as you know want to reduce carbon, all while effectively, blocking the most effective measures of doing so; dams and nuclear power!
Rhrosty.

I too wonder about factions in the Libs. Abbott has been an effective leader in opposition, but a PM? Can the Libs really contemplate another three years in opposition while their assured election winner sits twiddling his thumbs in the shadow communication portfolio?
If Rudd has "learned", and I doubt he has, surely Turnbull has too. And of all the contenders and pretenders staking their claims to the top job, Turnbull seems to be the only one with the stature to rescue Australia from the bickering mediocrity it has descended into.

Did Mr Winter have any role in advising the former coaches of the Australian rugby union or cricket teams?

What really worries me is that too may voters are voting for the "like" reason, we don't have to "like" everyone, but what we expect from each leader is that they do their "job". Tony Abbott is the Opposition Leader and Kevin Rudd is the Prime Minister.
Each time Kevin Rudd or his Ministers are asked a question they raise the question or mention "What would the opposition do". Its not the opposition's place to govern that is what the Labor government should be doing. It's time that Rudd got out of his car, plane, or shopping centres and back into governing the country and not issuing un-thought out ideas which will probably never see the light of day.
The whole country is waiting.

This article is missing the point. After 6 yrs of horrendously poor leadership marked by machiavellian plots, bizarre decision making and Labor party internal conflicts which have almost brought the nation to a standstill why would anyone be afraid of Abbott?

Its a classic example of how people whitewash to failings of the Left and exaggerate those of the Right.

Aggression? Who is more aggressive than Gillard or Rudd?? Theirs was a disguised aggression subtly plotting and planning behind each others backs.

Arrogance?. Neither Rudd nor Gillard took advice from anyone!

Inability to connect? He connected enough to almost win the last election.

The author is putting too much emphasis on the presentation and voter appeal and not substance.

After two disastrous Labor leaders who is not in for a change? Can he be worse? I don't think so.

A vote for Rudd is looking better with each passing day.

I'd add to Abbott's downsides his record when in Government against particular women:

- Howard knew of slush fund to target Hanson http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/26/1061663793191.html

and women generally

- Abbott was involved in controversy in 2006 for opposing access to the abortion drug RU486, and the Parliament voted to strip Health Ministers of the power to regulate this area of policy.

Does Abbott share Putin's Il Duce* character or just hold himself like Putin?

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_Duce

Abbott's a morally & intellectually bankrupt throwback - a desperate, hysteria-mongering, habitually dishonest, arrogant megalomaniac.

The rest of the Liberal party is little better.

Team Abbott represents the worst & most radically Right-wing and politically atavistic pack of narcissistic, anti-democratic, neoconservative corporatist plutocrats to have ever emerged from a major party.

If the Liberals get in again they will resume & accelerate the program Howard was kicked out for pulling.

They have learnt nothing and if Australia elects him - either has the country.

Compared to Kredit Rudd, Abbott is a shining beacon of competence.

As usual KRudd is promising everything to everyone, and as usual is making policy on the run. Kredit Rudd having promised to support the car industry has just torpedoed it with the levy on company cars, who proportionally are the largest buyers of Australian made cars.

What brought both Rudd and Turnbull down as party leaders was their obsession with the anthropogenic global warming story.

But meanwhile those corporations (increasingly foreign like News Ltd and the mining companies), that own the Liberal Party regarded post-Howard Labor as not a legitimate party of government, and as an impediment to their goals. Inventing endless “leaks” to stir up reader pressure for displacing the leader was part of their presentation of Labor as temporary and illegitimate. You could even see it in their vocabulary. In supposedly straight news reports, the Government didn’t do this or that, Labor (i.e. the usurpers) did it.

During the Rudd-Gillard period the Global Financial Heist was launched and governments in country after country meekly helped shovel the people’s wealth into the raiders’ coffers until their populations faced poverty and despair. Australia was an exception. The exception was the Rudd-Gillard tandem government. It franticly plugged the outflow and kept us afloat. Yes there were fumbles (though the pink batts bungling arose from our outdated federal structure, with states handling the rollout). But basically, while supine governments abroad chose (and are still choosing) mass impoverishment the Australian government swung into nation-building. The wealth-takers are fairly slavering to get back to slaking their insatiable greed for untrammelled grabbing power, the good old Work Choices days, the days when the Liberals could even lie us into war. They want their poster boy, Tony Abbot, in office and getting on with it without another week’s delay

Will abbott see the distance His popularity is dismal against Turnbull.
With abbott losing ground it may be best for a change before it gets too late.

Abbott will make a better PM than Rudd any day. I would advise him though to rid himself of all ALP appointed heads of Departments & senior Uselessers (Bureaucrats) if he wants to take this country out of the quicksand.

The problem is individual is that people are looking at places like QLD and seeing what the conservatives are doing and thinking is Abbott capable of the same?

Take the UK where Cameron's lot have just sold off the nations blood supply to Bain Capital. You remember them, Romney's mob.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/is-there-no-limit-to-what-this-government-will-privatise-uk-plasma-supplier-sold-to-us-private-equity-firm-bain-capital-8718029.html

People are really getting wary of Abbott beating up the supposedly dire state of the economy so he gives himself licence to do things such as the above.

That is why the big privatisation push of public hospitals in Queensland is more than likely going to hand Rudd the State and possibly the election, especially as it is being overseen by Costello, a past Abbott compatriot.

csteele,
Yep, I'd agree with that. Rather than just going in with their policies the're more occupied by trying to win ALP voters over. What they need to do is to change the inefficiency at once by getting rid of the ALP component in higher ranks & presto we'll have a Government that can do things.
I hope that both ALP & Coalition supporters have learnt from the Labor years & move on accordingly. Abbott won't have any other chance than to perform reasonably well. Teach politics in school & we'll become a better society in no time once the young comprehend tho folly of Socialism & no reward for effort.

Plagiarised this from the net.

Remember,there IS a test coming up.The next election.

These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:

1. You can not legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

What, no contradiction to this ? C'mon don't leave this thread so dead-ended ! Surely it must be wrong.

This is an open invitation to the Suseonlines, the Paul1405s, the Lexis, the Poirots et al to tell us here on OLO if the 5 points are valid or not.

Thank you lefties, you have proven my point beyond doubt by your deafening silence.