The whole country desperately wants Costello back !!!!, but there maybe one exception, ol Atomou lol.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24129887-601,00.html August 05, 2008
PETER Coleman wants son-in-law Peter Costello to stay on in politics to defeat the "dreadful" Rudd Government. And Mr Coleman, who co-authored the Costello memoirs to be released next month, believes the former treasurer changed his mind about leaving politics while writing his tell-all history of the Howard years and will use the book to map out his agenda for Australia.
Mr Coleman has revealed Mr Costello became undecided - "a Hamlet-like figure" - about leaving politics after he was "cut down at the height of his powers" when the Howard government lost power. It's the first time the Costello camp has publicly said he had flirted with the idea of not pursuing a private sector career.
"I think he is still considering his position; yes, I do," Mr Coleman told The Australian Online. "The cartoonists who presented him as a Hamlet-like figure were at least right for a period. He may have (decided) on this recent holiday. I haven't spoken to him since he returned. It may well be that was a period of finally getting things together."
While his closest supporters privately insist they still expect Mr Costello to leave politics this year, Brendan Nelson conceded yesterday he was content to let the Costello speculation drag on until the September release date for the book, with the working title The Costello Memoirs.
Mr Coleman said writing the book was pivotal to Mr Costello reconsidering his declaration the day after the election loss that he would not contest the leadership and would seek a career in the private sector.
"Yes, that was certainly his mood on November 25th. I can't point to a date (that he changed his mind) ... I think (Melbourne University Press publisher) Louise Adler had something to contribute to that because she persuaded him to write the book," he said. "And that gave him the opportunity to really do more than brood but to actually settle down and sort out his ideas. So the book is a sorting out of ideas.
"Look, let me put it this way. There are two views. One is that, 'I did these 12 years and that's an important episode of my life and now it's time to move on'. That makes perfect sense, rather than revisit the old battlegrounds. The other view is that, 'I still have so much more to contribute that I really ought to do it'."
In a sneak preview of the much-anticipated book, Mr Coleman said it would also canvass the former Treasurer's views on Australia's future, including as a republic.
He said the memoirs also promised to provide some new insights into Mr Costello's troubled relationship with former prime minister John Howard.
"There's a touch of that, and there's touch of plain narrative, a touch of apologia. You know apologia is the wrong word, it's a fancy word for autobiography. You apologise to God, not to your colleagues," he said with a laugh.
A journalist and former editor of now-defunct The Bulletin magazine, Mr Coleman said his daughter Tanya, who was thought to be keen for her husband Mr Costello to exit politics, would also support him if he decided to stay. "My own preference would be for him to stay on and defeat this dreadful Government. But I can well see the other point of view," Mr Coleman said. "She will support her husband. She's a loyal wife in that sense. Not that she doesn't have views of her own. She would say it's, after all, his life and he has to live it if he goes back to Canberra."
Liberal insiders are now suspicious of a well-executed campaign to bring Mr Costello back to the frontline with strategic leaks over a lucrative London job offer he turned down in February and claims Ms Costello has told friends her husband would stay and fight.
Mr Coleman said he had no view on the theory that Mr Costello might wait and allow the Liberals to burn through two leaders before taking the crown, first Dr Nelson and then Malcolm Turnbull. "No view on that. No view on that," he said.
But Mr Coleman said he would never criticise his son-in-law for not challenging Mr Howard for the leadership.
"It's pretty well established. You do a count of the votes and the support and you either expect to win and if you haven't got the numbers you don't do it. Or, you think there would be some advantage in splitting the party which was something that Peter would never do. Between those two he was stymied. The third thing being the prime minister's unyielding attitude."
Mr Coleman said the book was "Peter's memoirs, his story". "At the beginning Peter was providing the autobiographical information and I was doing the writing. But in a very short time Peter got into the stride of things and turned himself into a writer. He became quite fluent. The collaboration was not something that was cut and dried but changed as it developed.
"(There were) no barneys. There were disagreements and they are continuing. But they were all amicably settled or put aside."
Mr Costello's brother Tim, who has also been critical of Mr Howard's refusal to agree to a timely leadership handover, said yesterday he was none the wiser as to his brother's political plans, but noted that Dr Nelson had a long chat with Mr Costello recently and knew the real story. . . . . . . .
