Martin, IMO Abbott has been put on notice that with the 2PP polls down to neck and neck and his personal staisfaction rating at all time low there is a risk of losing the next election. The mini campain launch was a last ditch effort to see if he can improve on that and if not there would be time for a change of leadership.
The next few polls will be critical for Abbott, they will need to show a big improvement if he is to stay on as leader.
Just under a year ago the LNP had a commanding lead on 2PP and while Abbott was not all that popular then the Lib's looked like they could have pulled off a big win. Now that the polls show it's neck and neck & Abbott is by far less popular than Gillard the LNP would have to have doubts on winning the election.
The other thing that is likly to see Abbott's popularity slide and bring down the LNP is the details of his policies, in his mini campaign he annouced there would be no new changes to Supper but when pressed aparently some previously announced changes to super would go ahead as they where not new.
Scrapping the education bonus will impact on all low to middle income earners, the account for a big majority of voters. Labor have cunningly started running ads telling people they will be reciving a payment shortly and another in July. I don't think people are going to be to happy about that.
Then we have the scrapping of the CT, Mrrt and the associated benifets, again when the detail of that hits home people will not be happy. Especialy as the CT & Mrrt has not had the impact Abbott predicted.
