The festival of bitching about Peta Credlin is in full swing this week with an entire book devoted to her bizarre relationship with Tony Abbott. And it is a bizarre relationship – how many people in your life are allowed to yell at you to “fuck off” over the phone?

In Niki Savva’s book The Road to Ruin: How Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin Destroyed Their Own Government, Credlin has even been compared to Wallis Simpson, a deeply weird analogy. There is no proof theirs was anything more than a professional relationship and Credlin’s marital status did not breach the constitution in relation to Abbott’s job. He also didn’t abdicate. There are better comparisons for a “slavishly dependent” relationship.

Abbott does not seem to have the benefit of hindsight just yet – it has been almost six bruising months since he lost his job but our 28th prime minister maintains he did a great job. Credlin and Abbott’s responses to the book post-publication – they were not asked for comment by Savva – not only fiercely deny an affair but state their competency as fact.

From family to foreign policy, depth of Peta Credlin's hold over Abbott emerges Read more

The focus, vitriol and blame heaped on Credlin is quite extraordinary, and of course there are elements of sexism, but the main player, the actual prime minister, the man who was in charge of Australia has been relegated a bit part in the downfall of his government.

After being painted as a man-child who came under the spell of That Woman on his road to the prime ministership, Abbott issued a curt statement. “The best response to this book is the objective record of the Abbott government,” he said after the first day of the media carnival surrounding Savva’s book.

When Abbott talks about the objective record he is talking about three things in particular – stopping the boats, axing the carbon and mining taxes and the vague notion of “keeping Australia safe”. The “objective record” shows that together the prime minister and his chief of staff were good at making sure things did not happen – perhaps something their critics and fans can agree upon.

What does an examination of Tony Abbott’s record reveal?

While there has been an undisputed slow down in the number of asylum seekers attempting to make it to Australia by boat, debate rages on about whether Abbott’s policies actually stopped the boats. The information about the boats under the Abbott government certainly stopped, and since Turnbull became prime minister there has been at least one turn back. The technicalities of the stopped boats aside, how this policy will be recorded by history is likely to be shameful.

Our obligations to people fleeing persecution – which are not just assumed in human decency but enshrined in the United Nations refugee convention – have without a doubt been breached. There are numerous allegations of torture, of mistreatment, of violence, of rape in the offshore detention centres where adults and children are being held indefinitely. The real cost of this policy, the damage inflicted and the human toll, will likely not be known for many years.

As for axing the carbon and mining taxes, it’s unlikely that these reforms will be seen in the same way as introducing Medicare, floating the dollar or the gun buy-back scheme.

The Abbott government got rid of a market-based mechanism where polluters had to pay as part of the effort to reduce carbon emissions. The climate change policy which replaced the carbon tax, Direct Action, is yet to produce any laudable result, in fact land clearing in Queensland is set to wipe out a carbon emission saving which was made by Direct Action in the state.

Abbott’s declaration he kept Australia safe is so vague that to measure it is to attempt to count how many political commentators have referenced the Red Wedding – where do you start? Abbott has tried to position himself as a national security warrior on the international speaking circuit, but whether he hindered terrorists will always be difficult to establish.

'Whatabouttery' is plaguing feminism and Peta Credlin is its latest victim | Bridie Jabour Read more

Putting aside the deafening dog whistling about terrorists on boats, he did impose restrictions on the civil liberties of the average person introducing legislation which retains people’s metadata for two years and laws which could make it offence for journalists to report on spying, so one assumes there are some restrictions to the civil liberties of any potential terrorist out there as well.

His enthusiasm for “Team Australia” was widely acknowledged as damaging to relationships with the Islamic community, and it’s not something his successor has continued – the Australian newspaper almost mournfully marked this with the headline “Team Australia benched as PM sets new tone” on Monday.

So what does “the best response” to the Abbott government’s record say?

It says when Abbott gazed upon Australia and thought of all it could be and what he could achieve, he saw bogeymen and everything he wanted to rid it of. His vision of what Australia could be was a vision where he was taking things away, erasing parts, not allowing things to change too much.

And, he allowed himself to be too influenced by a staffer.

But just as sexism doesn’t explain everything about the reams written about Credlin but does explain some things, she did not bring down his government, although she certainly helped. Let’s not forget who was in charge.