Earlier this week, Crikey‘s political editor Bernard Keane famous that in constantly denouncing Opposition Chief Peter Dutton as “nasty and divisive“, the Labor authorities was falling into the identical entice it had towards Tony Abbott: “obsessing about him and pondering if it could actually simply discover the correct assault line, voters will realise how terrible he’s and flock again to them”.
So what occurred final time Labor was up towards somebody broadly thought to be an unelectable embarrassment and tried to make a political technique out of these traits?
2011
In March, after opposition chief Tony Abbott addresses an anti-carbon tax protest in entrance of a placard that describes her as Greens chief Bob Brown’s “bitch”, prime minister Julia Gillard calls Abbott a “bitter, hole man. A person with no judgement who by no means will get the massive calls proper”:
I say to the chief of the opposition I imagine Australians are more and more disgusted together with his negativity and revolted by his conceitedness.
They see them on show each day. This puffed-up conceitedness as he pursues his slender political pursuits and goes about spreading worry and negativity in the neighborhood.
On the time, Gillard leads Abbott 50% to 31% as most well-liked prime minister, however the Coalition has a cushty lead in a Nielsen ballot of the two-party most well-liked vote. Regardless, Abbott’s private approval score continues to plummet all year long.
2012
Abbott blames “private assaults on him” — together with the allegation that, within the Seventies, he had punched a wall on both aspect of a feminine political opponent’s head — on Labor “grime items”. Abbott’s spouse Margie makes a uncommon public assertion defending him towards expenses of sexism. Labor insists Abbott stays “honest recreation” forward of the return to Parliament in October.
When Parliament does sit, Abbott strikes to have speaker Peter Slipper eliminated, after his texts that includes Slipper’s misogynist language had been reported throughout the media. Gillard responds with a speech that will turn into one of many defining recollections of her time as prime minister, accusing Abbott of hypocrisy and quoting extensively from his historical past of sexist feedback. Abbott’s private score takes one other hit, however the Coalition stays forward of Labor.
By November, Abbott’s approval score is the bottom it has been since he turned opposition chief. He blames Labor’s “limitless private assaults“.
2013
In June, Gillard argues that an Abbott authorities would “banish ladies’s voices from the core of our nation’s political life”. Later that month, fearing a landslide defeat to Abbott, the ALP replaces Gillard with former PM Kevin Rudd, returning him to the workplace Gillard had taken from him three years earlier. Bernard Keane famous on the time that the change meant:
Labor has an opportunity to prosecute the case towards Tony Abbott with out the incessant distraction that the management has proved because the first leak destabilised Gillard’s election marketing campaign in July 2010. Nonetheless, as the instance of Gillard periodically demonstrated, even when Labor has had clear air wherein to assault Abbott, it has didn’t make a dent on his large polling lead.
Rudd’s score as most well-liked prime minister instantly rockets previous Abbott’s, however the Coalition retains a lead on the two-party most well-liked foundation. In the beginning of August, Rudd calls an election for September 7. Because the marketing campaign wears on and Rudd’s recognition drops — ultimately to its lowest level throughout his time as Labor chief — Labor assaults on Abbott “ramp up”.
The Abbott-led Coalition wins comfortably. Pollster for the then Fairfax papers Nielsen’s John Stirton identified on the time that “Tony Abbott is the primary unpopular opposition chief to win an election” within the historical past of the Fairfax Nielsen ballot.
“The distinction between him and different opposition leaders who’ve received is that all of them had a transparent internet optimistic approval score.”
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