"Abbott would have to be thinking very hard about pulling the pin before he fronts up for tomorrow's speech."
It may be more a matter of what will Credlin do.
Just read a Miranda Devine column outlining some of the Liberal party backbencher gripes about the way the PMO is run.
I always thought Devine was an Abbott fan so maybe her article could be seen as a defence of Abbott.
Quote: 'Christopher Pyne’s declaration of support for Credlin earlier in the week, when he claimed she won the 2013 election for the Coalition. “We couldn’t have done it without Peta Credlin. I think that Peta Credlin is absolutely intrinsic to our success.”
What an insult. How unhealthy for a government to be so dependent on a mere staffer.
The implication is that Abbott is such a liability that he could not be trusted to get through an election without Credlin keeping him under control.
Is Abbott really so desperate to hang on to his chief of staff that he would debase himself so?
“It’s absolutely humiliating,” said one influential Liberal. “Once upon a time staff used to defend ministers. Now ministers are defending staff.”
Of course, Pyne was echoing comments Abbott made last year when he accused his colleagues of sexism for criticising Credlin.
The damaging irony of Abbott using the misogyny line seemed to escape him, if not his colleagues, who were incandescent with rage. They were stymied from speaking their minds at the last party room meeting but home truths are ready for the next one on February 9.
The Prince Philip gaffe has had the effect of eliciting a more complete and detailed criticism of Credlin from a growing number of increasingly loquacious sources.
It is a tale of a thousand small atrocities that add up to a crippling of the government’s political capacity in everything from dealing with crises to wrangling the Senate.
“She has deconstructed the apparatus that got him elected” says one former intimate. “No one is allowed to have contrary views. There is no contestability.”
Anyone who has objected has been sidelined, demoted, pushed out by Credlin. She has centralised control in Stalinist fashion, determining all staff appointments, and pay, vetoing the wishes of even senior ministers to hire a chief of staff or adviser of their choice.
Some of the tactics used to get rid of contrary people are so petty as to be unbelievable. Crucial staff are undermined by being left off email lists so they miss meetings, for instance.
Tony O’Leary, a skilled Howard era media adviser, was seen being escorted out of the Prime Minister’s private election night party in by a security guard. He resigned two days later.
Staff have been forced to move to Canberra, with the absurd outcome that they are separated from their bosses who return to their electorates when Parliament is not sitting.
All this has occurred in the Prime Minister’s name, “under his benign gaze”.
The end result is that government is trapped in the unreal bubble of Canberra, and Credlin dictates who sees Abbott and what advice he receives.
A cursory knowledge of group psychology will tell you that a small group with no diversity of opinion is a sure-fire recipe for bad decisions.
“You used to have a smorgasbord of people who had input,” says one former insider.
“But she has hunted out of that office anyone with an independent opinion.”
As soon as Abbott settled into office, Credlin took over his diary and made it secret, unlike the open book of Howard’s era. Under Credlin, staff had to look out the window into the Parliamentary courtyard to even see if Abbott was in town.
The most astute political operators, those with corporate memory and an understanding of the dark arts, have left. The resulting brain drain demonstrates itself regularly with embarrassments such as the easily avoidable photograph of Joe Hockey and Mathias Cormann enjoying a cigar during Budget deliberations.
The horrendous serial confusion over the GP copayment was another example of amateur hour in the PM’s office, which left him looking like a goose, not knowing what his staff had been telling journalists.
There are stories of tantrums and tears if anyone challenges Credlin. Visitors tell of Credlin yelling obscenities at the PM. Staffers have been instructed by Abbott to buy her flowers if they fall out with her.
Meanwhile her profile keeps growing. She hit the front pages last year talking about the burqa ban, and again to deny telling Foreign Minister Julie Bishop (“Julie”) that she could not attend a climate meeting in Peru. Bishop’s anger at the effrontery resulted in a story in which the two women were described by a colleague as “like two Siamese fighting fish stuck in the same tank”.
Unedifying barely covers it.
Credlin appears frequently in photographs with the PM, at the top tables with world leaders. Business leaders complain she is present whenever they meet Abbott. Some claim she answers questions on his behalf.
One story has her kicking up a fuss when there was no chair available for her in an ambassadorial meeting, with the result that Abbott’s foreign affairs adviser had to vacate the room for her.
There is more, much more. The so-called Credlin Choke is strangling the business of government. Important people can’t get her to return their calls.
In the Liberal Party, John Howard is God. He had dinner with Abbott at Kirribilli House before Christmas and spoke bluntly about the Credlin problem. Others reinforced the message, to no avail.
Abbott won’t be dispensing with Credlin’s services. He appears to believe he cannot survive without her.
But she owes it to the government to resign, in the great tradition of staffers who have fallen on their sword once they become a liability.
