The thing with Abbott is a lot of the liberal party base like him. He use to be very snobby and alienated from the public (went to yale or cambridge i believe, was a monk or close to a monk for awhile). He's done an exceedingly good job of turning that around to seem like an average joe.
He's also very good at being a populist and appealing to the masses, he's very good at firing up the base. He's almost presidential in the way he acts. I can seriously see him doing just fine under a presidential system, especially in the USA. You have so much more focus on the actual leader and what they do compared to what it should be like in parliamentary systems. There are a few stars in his cabinet but he's basically the face of it all.
He has a couple problems though. While he does appeal to socially conservative voters just fine and some people put how morals operate in society above pretty much anything else...those votes he'll continue to get. When you run into people who care past that, you hit other issues. If they're not voting for him because they think the sky will fall because we'll be inundated with boat people or we'll have gays marrying (shock horror!) and having the same rights as everyone else, they're not nearly as strongly bound to him and his policies. Thats where the problem lies - The liberal party at this point barely has any actual policies.
It has policies in the negative sense, the sense that they'll roll back a lot of what labour has done or what is wrong with labour has done. They dont have many policies at this point of what they actually *will do*. Again, forgetting the chunk of emotive voters who are so powerfully affected by single issues (carbon tax, boat people, gay marriage, ect), he still needs to have half decent policy to keep people. He's been lucky because he's been sniping labour from the shadows. He can attack the policies they actually have when they have next to nothing to attack him on in this regard.
Sooner to election time we will see some policies out of him. A lot of them already seem terrible. Both parties believe in climate change or want to act on it. Theres not much room for voters who disagree. The liberals plan involves more government intervention and cost though. They're meant to be the party of low government intervention, low taxes, low regulation, ect. It's horrible for them that their policy is less free market than labours (after the actual tax phases ends in a couple years, carbon permits will be traded on the market) when they're the party of the free market!
Despite the rhetoric, Direct Action contains much that is similar to the Government's carbon policy eventually agreed with the Greens and independents. Like the Government's policy, it will spend billions on retiring dirty power plants in the La Trobe valley like Hazelwood. Like the Government's plan, Direct Action promises to invest in clean tech and renewable energy. And, believe it or not, Direct Action also promises to establish a form of carbon pricing.
Unlike the Government's scheme, however, it will not cap Australia's carbon emissions, it will not allow carbon pollution credits to be traded on a market, and it will not charge polluters for their emissions.
Instead, the Coalition plans to tackle carbon emissions by paying industry to pollute less, through an Emissions Reduction Fund. As the Direct Action policy document states:
The Fund will commence operation in 2011-12 with an initial allocation of $300 million, increasing to $500 million in 2012-13, $750 million in 2013-14 and $1 billion by 2014-15. It is envisaged that the Fund will invest an annual average of around $1.2 billion in direct CO2 emissions reduction activities through to 2020.
The Coalition will also spend another billion or so on policies such as its $400 million "one million solar roofs" program.
Totalling those numbers up gives a total spend of $9.22 billion out to 2020. Showing typically fuzzy accounting values, the Coalition has also said it will cap the cost of the program at $10.5 billion out to 2020. That's money that the Coalition says will come from "normal budget processes", which means either more tax, more borrowing, or spending cuts. Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey have already promised that money will not come from extra taxes. That means an incoming Abbott government has committed to more than $10 billion in spending cuts in order to pay for its carbon policies.
Thats the problem with Tony Abbott being populist and part of the liberal party. You can hit the sweet spot on some populist issues (boat people) but its hard to do what a lot of the public wants on this without spending money. Sending the navy to actively deny boat people costs money, it costs tax money. Same with his promise of a very comprehensive (and expensive) paid parental leave scheme. It's very populist and something people would like but it would also cost a shitload of money. They promise they'll cut taxes and reduce goverment spending and yet they're promising all these policies...which cost money...where will that money come from...?
I think he's just getting a lot of good polling at this point for a couple reasons:
A) The ever present socially conservative vote
B) He looks very good criticising and pointing out the flaws in labours policies, especially when he doesnt have many policies of his own to be "counter-criticised"
C) The massive rift in the labour party left scars. Kevin rudd was very popular in the public. For a lot of people, especially the less ideological voters, the people who are lot more swinging or dont really understand the political distinctions between the parties, Kev seemed like a decent bloke. Once he was knifed, enough was enough for these people. It doesn't help when people say silly things like...well my neighbour knew julia gillard and she did this...and this...so dont trust her. It doesnt matter if you think shes a liar or you care that shes an atheist or whatever. She's actually got a lot of pieces of legislation through and considering the hung parliament, has got a lot done. Still, a lot of people cant see past the knifing, fighting and trust issues.
This government seems like it will run almost to the full term. So, we have a couple years. It would be suicide for them to call an election right now. I think before the election, barring a major scandal, things will smooth out a lot better. The gap between the two of them will reduce a lot. Compound this with the fact that Abbott will have to release some actual policies before an election. His policies will be criticized then and finally he'll be on the defensive for once.
I still think he might win though. Julia gillard is a good politician. She gets things done. She's very consultative with the party, as you should be in a parliamentary system. The public just dont seem to like her very much but this shouldn't be like its an episode of celebrity big brother. The problem is when you have a lot of people who know so little about the electoral system (a lot of people legitimately believe we actually vote for the prime minister like people vote for a president in the USA) or read so little about policies, its bound to be about populist appeal.
Turnbull does have his head on right. He's the labour voters liberal leader but many liberals dont really like him. I like him and im on the left but i dont think a lot of liberals do. He seems like a truly small government liberal as well. Lets not forgot, when he was deposed and lost the leadership of the liberal party, he lost by one single vote. Thats a lot less than kevin lost by (which was in the 10s at least). So, it might come back to haunt us.
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