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In all of the best plays, the fifth act is not so much about tidying up loose ends as to underline and explain how richly the protagonist has deserved a fate that has, by the end of Act 4 become almost inevitable. Act 5 is not about the why or how, though both may be incidental. It's about showing that it's all about character, temperament and judgment, but also about offending the gods, karma, kismet and chickens coming home to roost. The tale is told after, when all (particularly with the benefit of hindsight) seems predestined. Luck, good and bad, may come into it, but will seem to be deserved. It will never come when it was most needed. Often the hero will be pulled down by characteristics which, at one time, seemed to lift him, or her, up. Someone who seemed to control the environment will be swept by the tide, unable to influence events. Knocking on doors that no longer open. Calling for help that no longer comes. Reprising friendships one let wither, or betrayed. It's very much looking like that for Tony Abbott now. He's had it all, in spades, not least friends, patrons and luck. But now the man can't take a trick. Even the diminishing ranks of people who wish him personally no ill cannot bear to look. He's brought most of it on himself. He has not been brought down by Labor. Nor by his ideological enemies inside his own party. He had, a fortnight ago, what he himself called a near-death experience, of realising what had for some time seemed obvious to nearly everyone else, that most of his team had lost confidence in his record and his judgment. Only a fear of the appearances of an execution, or the uncertainties of what might follow, was enough to hold a bare majority back from summary dismissal. He begged for a further chance to regain their confidence and to restore his, and their, political fortunes. He was grudgingly given it, the positive last of many last chances. He promised he would change. He promised more consultation, and less reliance on his own demonstrably appalling instinct and judgment. He promised a shift of focus, and less occasion for voters to hate him. He was given time by people who doubted that he could, or would, change his style or his personality. Who doubted he would suddenly begin listening to people he had always ignored, or stop listening to people whose personality they disliked, and whose instincts they trusted even less than they trusted Abbott's. His last chance came against all judgment because his colleagues feared that change could make things worse, and accentuate (or continue) public impressions of the Liberal Party being a shambles. That Abbott had won government by promising not to be like Labor – with "Labor" meaning unstable, unpredictable, feckless and irresponsible – underlined the risk of mere panic at Abbott's own chaos and dysfunction. Nothing – not one thing – that Abbott has done over the past fortnight has renewed confidence, or hope, in him. It hasn't been for want of Abbott's trying. Or attempts by him to shape and distort policy, and circumstances, including national security, into a narrative in which he is the heroic leader, the only man who can take the nation from the abyss. Nor have attempts at crude populism, such as the appearance of acting against rich Chinese entering the Australian property market, or poor Chinese packaging blueberries in possibly unhygienic conditions. (Thank heavens that Australia has such high standards of fruitpicking hygiene.) Or a steady stream of "announceables" fashioned for the political advantage of those who had been loud in their public support at his darkest hour. And even one or two policies, for example in social security, that were capable of being stitched into a fresh story of calm and resolute government with its eye on the things that matter, if only they did not have to be hijacked for survival. What has been seen instead is a reprise of all of the worst aspects of Abbott. More captain's calls, showing not only his poor instincts, reflexes and ear for public and party opinion, but his tendency to go several steps too far (linking Indonesian aid with a plea for mercy), pettiness (over the sacking of Philip Ruddock) and increasing impatience and anger with colleagues whose loyalties he, or his office, suspects. There's a ruthless willingness to sacrifice anything, including any bipartisan spirit on national security or decency in dealing with public servants, in a short-term battle for survival. There's a stubborn tendency to be loyal to people who may have shown him terrific loyalty, but whose misjudgment has helped bring him to this point. This fidelity might be admirable if it did not underline a core weakness – a continuing refusal to admit, even to himself, that he has made mistakes, misjudgment and wrong decisions. Abbott will admit, even to himself, only that he failed to adequately explain the perfectly sensible reasons why he did things. As the strain has become more apparent, there are disturbing signs of a physical anger held back only by the most immense self-control. There's more spiteful leaking. Admittedly this has been accompanied by leaking against him and his office, some clearly intended to "play with his, and his office's head" but the leaking from his side is in breach of explicit promises after explicit complaints, mostly based on claims about the personal style of his chief adviser, Peta Credlin. That leaking, on both sides, is now a big problem underscores how much his early period in office was free of anti-Abbott leaks; even if there was a steady stream of material demonstrating how much Abbott personally, or his office generally, was in total charge of government. Leaking was a technique of warning ministers and ministerial offices, playing favourites, demonstrating paranoia about potential rivals, and cutting down public enemies of the government. By now, most of those close to the action, including most of his colleagues, accept that his reign is practically over, and that there is nothing that can be done to repair his stocks. In one sense, everyone is prepared to join hands again and move on, content to leave the ugly obituaries, post-mortems and ultimate judgments to the historians. What's not yet clear is the manner and timing of his going, and how much fuss he and others make as his head is chopped off, his friends quietly strangled, possibly off-stage, and the bodies quickly removed by whoever has volunteered to play Winston Wolfe. A certain realist strain argues that the sooner it happens, the better, even at the risk of a short sharp explosion of unpleasantness. The Liberal Party federal executive is to meet next Friday, and most of its non-parliamentary members would prefer not to be flecked with blood. There's an election on in NSW in a month. The state coalition is riding comfortably but can only lose votes if it is conducted against the backdrop of constant talk of Abbott's erratic behaviour and remembrance of his own additions to the literature of double talk, prevarication, broken promises, and top-down chaos and dysfunction in administration. Queensland has underlined how much the Liberal "brand" has suffered from bad leaders, at both state and federal level. It shows too how quickly despairing voters will switch sides once it become apparent that one side is as bad as the other. Abbott's lasting legacy may be in his destruction of the idea that the Liberals at least are professionals, "grown-ups", or that they do government in a careful, cautious and considered way, compared with a more well-meaning, romantic, but foolish and impractical Labor. There's a Budget due in several months. Even if the successor were to continue with the Treasurer, Joe Hockey, its preparation, presentation and focus ought to be very much a leadership issue, impossible at the moment. Even now, Abbott and Hockey appear to be repeating the mistakes of the first Budget, in holding back materials such as the intergenerational report, they believe will help establish the budget narrative. As a way of confecting a sense of financial crisis necessary for public assent for spending cuts, it may not work anyway, for being overblown and altogether a little too cute. It will ignore inconvenient intergenerational transfers such as the government's inaction on climate change, the culture of entitlement within government constituencies (over, for example, superannuation, tax avoidance the family home and child care) and Hockey's equally tin ear for fairness and social justice. A new leader would want and need all the time possible to improve the government's brand, and standing, among voters. For some voters, mere change will be enough. Others will not be so trusting, particularly as they now appreciate rather more about the underlying tensions, disunity and contradictions within the party, particularly on matters such as action on climate change, multiculturalism and size-of-government questions. Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop are on the left of their party, while Abbott has always been to the party's right; repositioning the party, whether with the electorate, or caucus, will be tricky. In this, there may be vengeful players, perhaps Abbott himself, looking for opportunities to trip them, or issues to highlight and accentuate their differences with the more conservative in the parliamentary caucus. Will Abbott go quietly, or will he try to pull the house down? Abbott has long had a capacity to see his own personal interests as the higher interest, even the public interest. He is not as well-placed as Adam Giles, in the Lilliputian Northern Territory, who could respond to a coup attempt by a threat, through supporters, that his rump would bring down the government or call an election. But there are many scenarios by which Abbott must not only be dragged, kicking and screaming in a most undignified manner, from his job, but provide sullen and deliberate sabotage after. Perhaps even entertaining, as Kevin Rudd did, the delusion that the public had really wanted and voted for him, and that his replacement was a usurper deserving no mercy. It is not only Abbott's vengeance and recriminations which must be feared. The end of Abbott must, almost necessarily, be the end of Abbottism. That means not only dispensing, by force and violence if necessary, with the squadrons of Abbott loyalists in ministerial offices, but the careers of ministers, such as Joe Hockey, whose fate (for strange reasons) became intertwined with Abbott's. People such as Hockey have to be squared, or disposed of, individually: their behaviour is not in Abbott's gift. There's the tricky conundrum of the other two apexes of the Abbott triangle, his formidable chief of staff, Peta Credlin, and her husband, party chief executive Brian Loughnane. One can be sure that nothing is being organised to suit Abbott's convenience, or feelings. But it may well be planned so as not to accentuate any idea of ambush or assassination, or to give Labor any advantage. Abbott has been the author of his own fate. A new legend, as kismet, begins with new leadership. No doubt it will start well – it usually does – with new personality and vitality and sense of purpose in the whole government, just and judicious punishing of enemies and rewarding of friends, mopping up the blood and creating at least the impression of a renewed and reinspired government, under new management. Fate comes later.

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