Yesterday Tony Abbott delivered his campaign launch address with the opening quip “Isn’t it great to lead a united political party with a deputy I can trust, a predecessor who’s a friend and a former prime minister who’s a hero!”
Over at Get Up! they’re having some fun with Abbott’s words. The online activist site has taken a greatest hits approach to Abbott’s speeches and given them to women to read lines which he’s said in his parliamentary career including “Abortion is the easy way out” and “I think it would be folly to expect that women will ever dominate or even approach equal representation in a large number of areas.” Abbott’s history of talking about issues may haunt him at the ballot box.
And what did the expert commentators make of it? Michelle Grattan at the Age thought “Abbott convinces as PM” and his action plan was “a strong organising idea”. Annabel Crabb at The Drum couldn’t see saying “the closest thing to new policy it contained was the low-cost, high-moral-fibre promise to ratchet up mandatory prison terms for people smugglers”.