Fed: Battlelines clearly drawn for Abbott

AAP General News (Australia)
12-04-2009
Fed: Battlelines clearly drawn for Abbott

By Sandra O'Malley

CANBERRA, Dec 4 AAP - Tony Abbott has never shied away from a fight.

It's a skill he will need if the Liberal Party is to have any hope against the Rudd
government at the next election.

But aggression alone won't be enough for the job ahead of him.

Winning public support for the coalition will be important but so too will be unifying
a Liberal Party in which the gulf between the moderate and conservative wings seems insurmountable.

It will be a tough ask for an arch-conservative like Abbott, and his personal history
may not serve him well.

As a self-confessed member of John Howard's Praetorian Guard, Abbott is best known
for fighting battles.

He was a boxer in his youth, his recent tome on the future of the Liberal Party was
titled Battlelines and he's known as the "Mad Monk" - a reference to his time in the seminary.

Everything about him spells aggression.

So how will this staunch Catholic hard man bring together a party split on issues like
climate change and workplace relations?

The 52-year-old member for Warringah in northern Sydney claims he'll do it by being
"consultative and collegial".

"Political parties don't work when people announce what they are doing and expect everyone
else to follow," he told reporters during his first news conference as opposition leader.

"I will not be that kind of leader."

Two years ago, when Abbott first flirted with the idea of leading the Liberals, one
of his selling points, as he saw it, was his "people skills".

Anyone who knows Abbott - in even a cursory way - was amused.

Now he will need to dig deep into that arsenal to win over the half of the party that
wanted Malcolm Turnbull to remain leader.

He will also have to make amends with middle Australia, which only remembers him as
a right-wing trouble maker.

Although he's a complex individual, more broadly he's known for his deeply Catholic
views and opposition on issues such as abortion, voluntary euthanasia and the stem-cell
debate.

He sticks in the public memory for his battles.

There was his stoush with Nicola Roxon at the National Press Club during the 2007 election
campaign, where he swore at her after she needled him for being late.

More offensive to many was his slur against the late asbestos campaigner Bernie Banton
in 2007, when he questioned the purity of Banton's motives in delivering a petition to
the then health minister.

Admitting he had "stuffed up" in the past, Abbott on Tuesday sought absolution to start
afresh as leader.

"I probably should, I suppose, apologise now for all my errors of the past, and make
a clean breast of it if you like and ask the public to judge me from this point," he said.

He's taken on Pauline Hanson time and again - although he has had a more affectionate
relationship with another feisty redhead, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who has
shadowed him numerous times over the years.

During his 15 years in parliament, Abbott handled some of the most difficult issues
for John Howard, to whom he was always a loyal lieutenant.

He was a combative workplace relations minister and was left to pick up the pieces
in health when the system began to implode.

Throughout life he has shown himself to be a man of many talents.

Athlete, firefighter, lifesaver, trainee priest, journalist, author, Rhodes scholar,
to name a few.

He has the chutzpah to waltz around Parliament House in his cycling gear and appear
in a national broadsheet in his Speedos.

To make a fist of his next battle, Abbott will need to be many things, not least his
confident, conciliatory and pugnacious best.

AAP so/sb/jhp/de

KEYWORD: ABBOTT (AAP PROFILE, WITH FACTBOX) REPEAT

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