Why Abbott is a political failure - Australia

Abbott remains a dead man walking. Nothing can save him now. Instead of going with a bit of humility and grace however he has decided to manipulate the political levers right to the bitter end. He will be done slowly now, the victim of his own failures.

It was obvious from the far right wing nut budget he bought out. Abbott just doesn't get Australians. That we want fairness in society, and we don't want to make life harder for people who're already doing it tough. Yet Abbott's neoLieberal agenda demands throwing us all at the mercy of a Capitalist system that takes away wealth and distributes it to the money gods at the highest levels of society. Abbott's thinking goes right along with such systematic destruction of the middle and lower classes however.

With Abbott it's all about fending for yourself in a dog eat dog world. He has no time for human kindness, as illustrated by his various comments and treatment of the unfortunate. Bernie Banton particularly comes to mind.

Abbott was the corporate poster boy for neoLieberal philosophy. However Abbott has consistently failed to understand that Australians don't want their country handed to the corporations. I said at the beginning of the struggle Australians began against the Abbott budget; the corporations had no idea the challenge they were facing when they tried it on in Australia.

As the economist John Quiggin argues, recent volatility in election results actually reflects a very coherent and consistent view. Australians do not want governments that will further advance neoliberal economic reform as their central purpose and priority. 

The public rejects the bargain that has been repeatedly proffered, of higher income and more funding for services at the cost of more privatisation, greater inequality, and further unravelling of an underlying sense of social solidarity. They will continue to spurn governments which attempt to go in that direction. 

It is also obvious that retreating to a pre-1980s version of social democracy is untenable. The world has changed. 

If this is true, then the central questions for politics are who can articulate a credible alternative path, and when will they do it? Political success certainly requires a touch of swagger and steel. But national leadership is more than a game for clever boys. In these times, it demands empathy, humility and substance. more  

All of which Abbott is not.