Abbott gov in crisis

The wheels are falling off. No other way to summarise it. They're panicking. Polling is in free fall again. It's finally sinking in that they've fucked themselves royally (pun intended). 

Abbott however appears to be in deep denial, I reckon to the point of psychosis. His refusal to admit that ABC cuts were a broken promise a case in point. Even his own ministers are taking him to task over it, but he doesn't want to budge. It just makes him look ridiculous.

Howard went through periods of very bad polling (albeit unlike Abbott's) but he always managed to pull the polls back into his favour. Abbott hasn't got anywhere near Howard's capacity to do so. Instead he's dug in. No wonder the party is getting frustrated with him.

How much longer can this go on? Something has to give, and it doesn't appear it's going to be Abbott. 

IMO it's too late to make any changes and restore faith in the gov. Nobody will believe a word that man says ever again. He's taken political lying to a level never seen before, at least in Australia.

The refusal had led to farcical scenes in parliament on Monday as the opposition hammered away with successive questions quoting Mr Abbott's words back to him. 

By Tuesday, and with the government hemorrhaging support in the face of a clear broken promise, Mr Abbott finally relented declaring "of course I made that statement," to ironic applause and jeers from across the chamber. 

Earlier in the day, Mr Abbott had told colleagues he was pleased with the year in politics, but was aware that some problems needed resolving before the summer break. 

With the government languishing in the polls for the past ten months, some Liberals and Nationals MPs believe changes must be made to the approach before year's end in order to start 2015 with a clean slate. 

Mr Abbott has been urged in private conversations and in government forums to square up to those policies which voters see as breaches of promises made from opposition to restore integrity and trust by being "a government that says what it means and does what it says". 

One senior MP told Fairfax Media he had urged Mr Abbott to state openly that the ABC decision was a funding cut and therefore a broken promise in order to explain why it was necessary given the budget situation. 

"It was like I farted in a lift," the MP said, describing the silence. more