Tony Abbott for PM

noco said:

Joolya said she would rather be in a school yard talking to kids instead of talking to world leaders. May be that is her level. The school girl giggle tells it all.
The media blows up the trivial Abbott jet lag caper because most of them are pro Labor. Why arn't they out there blowing up the school kid preference instead of her talking to world leaders??????????????????????? That is far more important and I wonder what the world leaders think of Joolya after that gaff. Maybe less than Kevvie 747. What an attitude for by our Prime Minister.

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And when do you finish school or are you on holidays?

todster said:

And when do you finish school or are you on holidays?

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Wow, looks like I hit a pro Labor nerve.

noco said:

Joolya said she would rather be in a school yard talking to kids instead of talking to world leaders. May be that is her level. The school girl giggle tells it all.
The media blows up the trivial Abbott jet lag caper because most of them are pro Labor. Why arn't they out there blowing up the school kid preference instead of her talking to world leaders??????????????????????? That is far more important and I wonder what the world leaders think of Joolya after that gaff. Maybe less than Kevvie 747. What an attitude for by our Prime Minister.

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I guess, as always, we will interpret events in the light of our own bias.
I hold no brief for Ms Gillard, but actually found her statement admitting to some discomfort on the world stage as pleasantly self-disclosing and realistic.
I think she has the capacity to grow into the job, without assuming the artificial and phony persona that Mr Rudd demonstrated ceaselessly.

She is inexperienced in foreign relations, and she is simply admitting this.
Surely she is backed up by Stephen Smith's experience and guidance plus a substantial staff of public servants to offer guidance.

She is surely no worse on the world stage than Tony Abbott with his astonishing capacity to put his foot in his ever-deepening mouth.
Jet lag? Fergawdsake!

If he can't foresee the results of a remark like this, which will be reported far beyond Australia, then I agree with IFocus and others who have suggested he's simply not at this stage a Leader.

To be honest, both leaders are woefully lacking. The outlook in the short and medium term is miserable.

Julia said:

I guess, as always, we will interpret events in the light of our own bias.
I hold no brief for Ms Gillard, but actually found her statement admitting to some discomfort on the world stage as pleasantly self-disclosing and realistic.
I think she has the capacity to grow into the job, without assuming the artificial and phony persona that Mr Rudd demonstrated ceaselessly.

She is inexperienced in foreign relations, and she is simply admitting this.
Surely she is backed up by Stephen Smith's experience and guidance plus a substantial staff of public servants to offer guidance.

She is surely no worse on the world stage than Tony Abbott with his astonishing capacity to put his foot in his ever-deepening mouth.
Jet lag? Fergawdsake!

If he can't foresee the results of a remark like this, which will be reported far beyond Australia, then I agree with IFocus and others who have suggested he's simply not at this stage a Leader.

To be honest, both leaders are woefully lacking. The outlook in the short and medium term is miserable.

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It is my belief Abbott was trying protect the protocol of leader and opposition leader of Australia not travelling together and also the fact he did not want to telegraph his pending visit to Afghanistan. In doing so, the jet lag gaff came out to muzzle the media. It was certainly a foolish mistake on his part and he admitted to that mistake. That's more than I can say for the Prime Mininister who has tha happy knack of covering up.

noco said:

It is my belief Abbott was trying protect the protocol of leader and opposition leader of Australia not travelling together and also the fact he did not want to telegraph his pending visit to Afghanistan. In doing so, the jet lag gaff came out to muzzle the media. It was certainly a foolish mistake on his part and he admitted to that mistake. That's more than I can say for the Prime Mininister who has tha happy knack of covering up.

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Noco, if his main focus had been the protocol of the PM and Opposition leader not travelling together, why wouldn't he just simply say that? It would have made him look like the good guy and the PM irresponsible for not taking that into consideration when she issued her invitation.

I don't think there's much doubt that Mr Abbott was simply telling the truth when he said he didn't want to arrive jet-lagged. Just another example of how he lacks the capacity to think before he speaks. However admirable his honesty may be, it's not going to work in this competition.

Barry Cassidy is quite damning.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/06/3031152.htm?site=thedrum


Tony Abbott has said some silly things over the years. But to plead jet lag as a reason not to accompany Julia Gillard to Afghanistan is right up there with the silliest of them.

The insensitivity is compounded because he wanted to arrive "wide awake" for what was essentially a political event in the United Kingdom.

Unsurprisingly, the parents of two soldiers killed in Afghanistan condemned him for the remarks. One of them, Jennifer Ward, whose son Benjamin was the 11 Australian killed, said Afghanistan is a "hell of a place" and the troops morale is "knocked down pretty easy" so "it hurts when people say they can't be bothered."

Another, Felix Sher, whose son Gregory was killed in January, last year, described the comments as "a slap in the face".

The Herald Sun editorialised that he could not have offered a greater insult to Australian troops "by not going there because he didn't want to miss his beauty sleep.

"The enormity of what is a moral misjudgement and a political dereliction of duty will not be easily forgotten," the Herald Sun said.

"The Opposition Leader has let all Australians down by his inexcusable sense of political priorities. He may carry it as a fatal wound when the nation next goes to an election."

The comments are all the more bizarre because they don't reflect the way the man thinks. He is enormously patriotic and passionate about the welfare of Australian soldiers. He once considered pleading a case to John Howard to be defence minister. So why did he not simply explain that he had his own trip planned and that, in his view, was the most appropriate way to go? Security is no excuse because he didn't have to be specific about when he intended to make the visit. Perhaps the only excuse for the lack of judgement, given that he had just arrived in Birmingham, was... jetlag.

For those who think Abbott has been harshly judged, consider the situation in reverse. Imagine the public outrage that would have erupted had the Prime Minister knocked back an invitation to visit Afghanistan, flown straight to Brussels, and then told the media she had done so because she didn't want to meet world leaders jet lagged. She would never have recovered from the comment.

Whenever Abbott now visits the troops, it's going to be difficult for him, especially if that visit is taken when the issue is recent and raw.

I am clearly no fan of Abbott, but overall I don't believe the decision itself was a major error on Abbot's part - in the grand scheme of things a visit like that can be more of a distraction than a morale boost. As an issue of national importance, I believe there are many things more worthy of discussion and it's a shame that isn't the focus of the political media these days.

Abbott's handling of it was awful, and he's playing a political price in the manner he would have driven home himself if the shoe was on the other foot(perhaps harder).

Mofra said:

Abbott's handling of it was awful, and he's playing a political price in the manner he would have driven home himself if the shoe was on the other foot(perhaps harder).

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That's quite true. Julia Gillard et al have actually been pretty restrained in the their comments. They don't need to add anything. Mr Abbott has very ably done himself in.

If Abbott was a cow they would destroy and burn him for the foot and mouth disease that keeps breaking out. He has won a gold medal for putting his foot in his mouth more often than any other PM hopeful in history.

Bring back Malcolm. It's their only hope.

nioka said:

He has won a gold medal for putting his foot in his mouth more often than any other PM hopeful in history.

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Worse than Alexander Downer?

nioka said:

Bring back Malcolm. It's their only hope.

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Great! Then we'd have a choice between Labor and Laboral.

wayneL said:

Great! Then we'd have a choice between Labor and Laboral.

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Yeah, I'm sure that's why the lefties want Malcolm back. They seem so desperate to get rid of Abbott and, usually in the same breath, call for Malcolm's return.

However, it would make no point in having an opposition which is so left itself that it can't stand up for the wishes of those who elected them and are not happy with proposed government policies.

Abbott isn't perfect leadership material and any mistake, no matter how small, is shouted from the rooftops. He doesn't have the art of spinmeister to gloss it over and "move forward" (away from the blunder) as demonstrated by his opponent.

Neither is Abbott gifted in the area of speech and is what mostly gets him into trouble. Apart from that, he has done a great job in coming from way behind and doing the unthinkable of causing labor to lose 16 seats and bringing the coalition so close to victory. Speech difficulties aside, surely he should have some credit for what he has accomplished.

And (apart from Malcolm who has shown his colours), who else do the libs have that could have put so much pressure on labor?

derty said:

Worse than Alexander Downer?

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Downer made one gaff. It was an attempt at humour that went wrong and he paid the price. Abbott continues to make one after another. Time to pay the piper.

I think most here misunderstand Turnbull. Had his party backed his stance on the enviroment he would have maintained the support of middle Australia and not given the greens that vote which will be here to haunt us for many years. He was a very successful businessman. I can think of no one else that can pull Australia together. The far right will push the balance of power further and further towards the greens unless there are some concessions towards the centre of opinion. It is a case of one person, one vote whether you like it or not.

Remember that Turnbull only lost by one vote in his own party. Surely there is at least one of Abbotts supporters has doubts by now. Abbott didn't win seats, Labor lost them. The big winners were the greens.. and the Indies.

Ben Pobjie writes a very funny article about the weeks events worth a read gives ever one a serve but I'll just high light the bits about Abbott

But of course, the usual suspects in the Labor-loving, Green-hugging, government-aligned Independent-kissing chattering barbarian media elites immediately seized on this latest example of the Opposition leader’s admirable tendency to give voice to whichever kamikaze neuron misfires first, declaring that he had somehow shown “disrespect” to our troops by putting the avoidance of jetlag ahead of his sworn duty to be photographed with soldiers.

What the so-called “media” don’t understand is that Abbott’s meeting with Cameron was vitally important too. When it comes to the good of the country, nothing can be more important than planning the optimum way to get rid of an illegitimate government that is only in power because by pure random chance they just happen to have the support of the majority of a democratically-elected parliament.

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Of course it was all just a misunderstanding anyway, as Abbott explained that he had misspoken; what he meant to say was that he was planning to go to Afghanistan later by himself. Naturally, this got him a lot of sympathy, because we all know how easy it is, when you’re a bit tired and not thinking straight, to say the wrong thing. We’ve all been in the situation where what you mean is that you’re planning to make your own trip to Afghanistan, but instead get tongue tied and accidentally say that you don’t want to be tired for the big Tory hoedown. If the lazy leftists running the media weren’t so lazy and leftist they might have been able to discern his true meaning and we could have avoided the unpleasant episode.

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http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/39812.html

Nioka, I agree with you that Turnbull is generally the better leader of the two. He speaks more fluently for starters.

I guess the big question is whether he has lost the trust of coalition voters. I stumbled across a poll recently that had Abbott considerably more preferred than Turnbull as leader for the opposition. I can't find it again otherwise I would post the link with exact percentages. If he were true blue liberal, I imagine he would have easily remained as leader to this day.

I do find it curious as to why labor supporters keep calling for Turnbull to come back. Do they feel he is less threat to labor?

sails said:

Nioka, I agree with you that Turnbull is generally the better leader of the two. He speaks more fluently for starters.

I guess the big question is whether he has lost the trust of coalition voters. I stumbled across a poll recently that had Abbott considerably more preferred than Turnbull as leader for the opposition. I can't find it again otherwise I would post the link with exact percentages. If he were true blue liberal, I imagine he would have easily remained as leader to this day.

I do find it curious as to why labor supporters keep calling for Turnbull to come back. Do they feel he is less threat to labor?

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Let's not forget that Mr Turnbull stuffed up abysmally over the Grech affair.
Then, in making an agreement with Ms Wong about the ETS, rode roughshod over the wishes of many of his own party, in the process declaring himself able to make a decision quasi-unilaterally because he was the leader.

Let's hope he has learned something about the pitfalls of arrogance since then. Certainly he looks and speaks like a leader to a far greater extent than does Mr Abbott, but he has not shown much political nous in his brief leadership experience.

Julia said:

Let's not forget that Mr Turnbull stuffed up abysmally over the Grech affair.

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Did he stuff up over Gretch. Grech was the one that stuffed things up. Was Turnbull the victum of a Grech deception?. I doubt he was involved in the shonky email

One thing I am sure about is the fact that I would trust Turnbull to run the country. I dont trust Abbott at all but I do trust Gillard and Brown. I trust them to run the country........into the ground.. eventually.

sails said:

Nioka, I agree with you that Turnbull is generally the better leader of the two. He speaks more fluently for starters.

I guess the big question is whether he has lost the trust of coalition voters. I stumbled across a poll recently that had Abbott considerably more preferred than Turnbull as leader for the opposition. I can't find it again otherwise I would post the link with exact percentages. If he were true blue liberal, I imagine he would have easily remained as leader to this day.

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Well, the conservative voters will vote conservative no matter who their leader is, it is the swinging voters like myself that count.

Abbott is very hard to vote for. Malcolm much easier. I feel he wants to do what is best for the country, not his political skin.

nioka said:

Did he stuff up over Gretch. Grech was the one that stuffed things up. Was Turnbull the victum of a Grech deception?. I doubt he was involved in the shonky email

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Don't you remember Mr Turnbull standing up in parliament and demanding that the Prime Minister must resign? When all the time no one had checked where the emails were actually coming from? They'd organised a mole in Treasury in the form of Grech, and stupidly trusted him absolutely.
That's what I mean when I say Turnbull lacks political nous. He made a complete fool of himself over this affair imo.

One thing I am sure about is the fact that I would trust Turnbull to run the country. I dont trust Abbott at all but I do trust Gillard and Brown. I trust them to run the country........into the ground.. eventually.

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Agree absolutely about Gillard and Brown, and even more Christine Milne when Bob Brown eventually retires.

You might be right about Mr Turnbull, if he learns to take advice.
Can you say why you have so much confidence in him?

Turnbull has strikes against him in my book:

- Questionable political judgement. Outflanked by Howard on the republic.
- An inner city left-leaning electorate - he will always be under pressure in Wentworth.
- All over the place ideologically - is he Liberal or Labor? Left or right? A chameleon.
- Big city mentality and outlook - questionable sympathy with the bush.
- Money to be made by trading carbon credits is there Malcolm?

For a right-leaning party, Abbott is by far the better choice for leader, for all the gaffes and foot-in-mouth, and ums and aahs. You can at least get a line on where he's coming from. Although much of his agenda on social policy is not to my liking.