Abbott admits to litany of mistakes as PM
A contrite Tony Abbott, in a unique exercise in self-criticism, has conceded a long list of mistakes and misjudgments in relation to policy, public opinion and dealings with colleagues that were instrumental in costing him the prime ministership.
Mr Abbott’s admissions constitute a deep personal reassessment. He pledges to try to rectify in his future public life the lessons from his inadequacies as prime minister.
He concedes that the Abbott government failed to rise to the challenges of “greater fairness, more thoroughgoing justice and deeper empowerment”.
The litany of admitted failures, large and small, has no parallel as a public confession for a deposed prime minister, even though most are made in hindsight. Mr Abbott says: “I made some unnecessary enemies and left too many friends feeling under-appreciated.
“I can’t let pride in what was achieved under my leadership blind me to the flaws that made its termination easier, even if claims were exaggerated or exploited in self-serving ways.”
He concedes “there were some issues the Abbott government could have managed better or not pursued at all”.
Mr Abbott’s comments are made in an article, obtained by
The Weekend Australian, to be published in the May issue of
Quadrant magazine. It is the third and last in a series reviewing his government.
He says having only one woman in his initial cabinet was an “avoidable error”.
He concedes he should have anticipated the “hostility” in knighting Prince Philip and left decisions for knighthoods to be taken by the Order of Australia council.
He believes in hindsight that the early decision to abolish the “debt ceiling” was a mistake because it completely misread the Senate’s resistance to making spending cuts.
In retrospect, he admits that abandonment of the change to section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act in the cause of free speech was a mistake and says he should have persisted with the sort of reform amendment later advocated by crossbench senator Bob Day.
Mr Abbott says that he should have realised far earlier that his generous paid parental leave scheme (based on six months at full pay) was “undeliverable” because of budget realities.
He concedes that a series of decisions he took at the outset to curtail MPs’ entitlements “created much resentment in the partyroom” and “at the very least I should have handled this more sensitively”. These decisions were halting MPs employment of immediate family members, ending first-class overseas travel and restricting family travel entitlements, a range of “perks” that alienated many MPs.
Mr Abbott says he should have done “more media, especially long-form interviews where voters see more personality and less adversarial sparring” — an admission his image became too confined, controlled and too defined by confrontation. He says this different media approach while carrying “the risk of mistakes” would have been an opportunity “to develop an argument and engender confidence”.
Reflecting on public perceptions of himself in office, Mr Abbott offers the sad remark that “everything became questionable”, even his volunteering in remote indigenous communities or the annual Pollie Pedal. It got to the stage where doing the local surf patrol became “beneath the dignity of a prime minister”, especially “if it meant wearing Speedos”.
Signalling a willingness to remain in public life, Mr Abbott says that he hopes to address his failures “in my future public life”.
At the strategic level, he concedes that the Abbott government’s biggest problem was “people’s reluctance to accept that short-term pain might be necessary for long-term gain”. Mr Abbott says there was a “moral purpose” to the unpopular 2014 budget policies that undermined his government yet he admits a degree of personal responsibility for communications failures.
He says his government was committed to more than restoration of the budget surplus but “we needed to explain better that sensible economic policy is not an end in itself but the means to a better society”.
The reality is that Mr Abbott would have survived as prime minister if he had avoided the long series of mistakes outlined in the article.
The first part of the article is devoted to issues where Mr Abbott believes his government made the right call: on climate change, same-sex marriage, national security laws, halting the boats and terminating corporate welfare.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...m/news-story/b2bae14f401ea9334764e900f2cebf49
How pathetic.
Raider
