Budgie Smuggling Tony to the Coalition's Rescue

Of dear, apparently it's not going all that well: Jacinta Price, Angus Taylor, Peter Dutton, John Pesutto, Sussan Ley, ...

"Exclusive: How Abbott and Credlin control the Liberals"

" Liberal MPs reveal how the former prime minister and his close confidante have been at the centre of a string of disastrous decisions that led to the party’s stunning election loss and the collapse of the Coalition. ..."
"... Price’s defection may have been cleared by the CLP in Darwin, but it enraged the Nationals in Canberra, cutting their Senate numbers from five to four – below the threshold for official party status. ..."
"... What truly rattled Liberal MPs, however, were rumours that Tony Abbott had quietly engineered the joint ticket from behind the scenes. For many, it felt like déjà vu: the former prime minister once again meddling in the party’s internal affairs, seeking to reassert his influence at a moment of turmoil and vulnerability. ..."

"... For the past three years, Abbott and his former chief of staff, Peta Credlin – now a prominent commentator across the Murdoch tabloids, as well as in The Australian and on Sky News – have been seen as shaping the federal party’s direction from the sidelines.

“It was Abbott and Credlin who were forever in Dutton’s ear. It was Abbott and Credlin who were programming Dutton’s stupid policy positions.”

“If you’re trying to understand why the Liberal Party today is a smoking ruin, then look no further than Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin,” says one member of the federal parliamentary Liberal Party.

“It was Abbott and Credlin who were forever in Dutton’s ear. It was Abbott and Credlin who were programming Dutton’s stupid policy positions. I actually think Dutton was open to a broader, more inclusive set of policies, but Abbott and Credlin were in there, basically f**king vetoing everything.” ..."

"... “Abbott, Credlin and Brian Loughnane – Abbott’s old campaign director and Credlin’s husband – were up to their necks in this cack-handed intervention into the New South Wales division,” says one NSW moderate. “It was a masterclass in arrogance and political misjudgement. They thought they could parachute in their factional favourites and steamroll the state party. Instead, they’ve left behind chaos, ill feeling and a string of lost seats. It’s been a disaster.”

Liberal moderates in Victoria are also seething over what they see as Abbott and Credlin’s role in goading upper house Liberal MP Moira Deeming into suing then state Liberal leader John Pesutto for defamation in December 2023. ..."

“Abbott, his Sky News after dark cronies and those few people left in the parliamentary party who still listen to him, are so tone-deaf that they are trying to pretend the weaknesses that made the Coalition unelectable are actually strengths,” one senior Liberal source tells The Saturday Paper. They believe that Abbott’s role in Price’s defection cost Taylor the leadership, which he lost to Ley, 29 votes to 25. ..."

"... Liberal insiders point to a striking uniformity in messaging across Sky News, The Daily Telegraph and The Australian – a set of preoccupations and even a phrasing style – that closely mirrors Abbott’s own. It’s a form of narrative discipline that gives the Right faction considerable reach – and an outsized ability to punish deviations from the Abbott–Credlin line.

As the Liberal Party struggles to rebuild after its 2025 election defeat, this coterie remains one of the most potent forces shaping its future. It is a shadow leadership that, in the view of many moderates, is the party’s greatest obstacle to renewal. ..."

https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2025/05/24/exclusive-how-abbott-and-credlin-control-the-liberals