Abbott reveals his plan for a more selfish Australia

Updated

Such a sharp cut to foreign aid deserved far more than a 24-hour debate, but it nevertheless caps a smart and disciplined election campaign from the Coalition, writes Barrie Cassidy.

Well, now you know. Under Tony Abbott Australia will be a wealthier and more selfish country.

The Coalition finally revealed - less than 40 hours before Australia votes - that it will create a $6 billion improvement on the budget bottom line and start paying down debt.

But to get there, an Abbott government will cut $4.5 billion from foreign aid.

The alternative treasurer, Joe Hockey, promised that Australia will do more to help out the rest of the world when it has a better economy. But rarely has the economy been better comparatively with the rest of the world than it now is.

At the very least, such a sharp cut in foreign aid deserved far more than a 24-hour debate competing with the absolute cacophony of the last day of an election campaign.

However, politically, the announcement will probably not hurt the Coalition very much at all. Many Australians will be satisfied that the last minute cuts didn't impact on them personally, or on key areas like health and education.

So with the final long-awaited piece of the jigsaw puzzle in place, nothing much will change.

There is a certain rhythm to Australian politics; a consistency that goes back 50 years or more. Part of that rhythm is that when governments change hands, it's rarely close.

Governments have held on narrowly, and sometimes with less than 50 per cent of the two party preferred vote. But when they lose, they lose decisively.

To demonstrate the point, here is the winning team's two-party-preferred vote when governments most recently changed hands.

1972 (Whitlam): 52.7 per cent

1975 (Fraser): 55.7 per cent

1983 (Hawke) 53.2 per cent

1996 (Howard) 53.6 per cent

2007 (Rudd) 52.7 per cent

The latest polls, when averaged out, suggest Abbott this time around will achieve something like 53 per cent, similar to or better than Whitlam in 1972 and Rudd in 2007.

But once again, Australians will make a judgment not on who ran the best campaign, but on whether the government performed well over time.

Good government will be rewarded and poor government punished.

Reserve Bank board member Roger Corbett caused a stir when he said Rudd was a leader discredited by his own conduct since being ousted in 2010. But his comments probably struck a chord with the electorate, and with many Labor supporters as well.

Rudd was a sitting duck for Labor's failures and yet unable to run hard on the genuine reforms like disabilities insurance, the Murray Darling Basin plan, education reform and the NBN.

Rather than spruik Julia Gillard's achievements, he was reduced to embarrassing scare campaigns like that on the GST, or silly thought bubbles like the "troppo tax" in the north and moving Garden Island to Queensland.

The fact is, Rudd had no real achievements of his own to fall back on. His government did steer Australia through the global financial crisis, and he did apologise to Indigenous Australians, but where were the big policy initiatives, either in his first three years or the second 70 days? Where were the initiatives like Medicare, superannuation, and the floating of the dollar, quite apart from the Gillard achievements already mentioned? There were lots of thoughts for the future, but nothing finished.

Neither was there a record of sound, stable and constructive leadership. A campaign at times chaotic and rarely focussed underlined that situation.

Rudd can argue that the media, and particularly News Ltd, made his job more difficult. But however the media coverage impacted on his campaign, it was nothing compared with how the leaks undermined Gillard's 2010 campaign.

Tony Abbott by comparison hadn't quite sealed the deal when the campaign started. He had to dispel fears that he was not up to the job; that he was impulsive and erratic.

He did that gradually over time with a measured, calm and controlled performance. He emerged strengthened from an essentially mistake-free campaign.

Undoubtedly, Abbott has come a long way in three years. He once early in his leadership said on Insiders that interviews made him anxious.

Last Sunday, he was different; far more self assured and confident. Not once throughout the last five weeks has he been thrown off course by an interview, and he did scores of them.

The Coalition's campaign was not without its faults. Who on earth thought it would be a good idea to buy boats from impoverished Indonesian fishermen?

But overall, Abbott was able to nail a daily theme. That theme wasn't always picked up, but you were left in no doubt what it was he was trying to highlight. There was never that kind of clarity at the end of Rudd's long monologues.

In summary, a positive from the campaign was that the major parties and the media finally found a workable formula for debates. The town-hall style forum that takes questions from the public and allows the leaders to engage one another works well. The challenge is to take that formula back to free-to-air television.

The biggest negative was, as already discussed, the last minute announcements of significant spending cuts.

On a less serious note, the best headline had to be the Courier Mail's "Send in the Clown" when Peter Beattie was brought out of retirement. Even he enjoyed it.

With apologies to program hosts around the country, the best interview has to go to Channel Ten's John Hill, who embarrassed the hapless Liberal candidate for Greenway, Jaymes Diaz.

And the best images? The five-year-old Korean boy, Joseph Kim, who so spectacularly photo bombed a Kevin Rudd picture opportunity at Ryde United Church; and Abbott joining the army for a cardio training session in Darwin.

Abbott's best moments were probably those that drew the most derision; his sex appeal comment, "baddies versus baddies" on Insiders, and the "does this guy ever shut up" interjection during the first forum. Short, sharp observations that resonate.

Rudd's moment of passion was the spirited defence of gay marriage on Q&A on Monday.

It will be an election night to remember, but beyond the night, there will be much to observe on both sides of politics before this political year is done.

Barrie Cassidy is the presenter of ABC programs Insiders and Offsiders. View his full profile here.

Topics: federal-election

First posted