My Two Cents: Tony Ab-boot-ed Out of Power

Tonight Tony Abbott was voted out of his position as Prime Minister by the Liberal Party.

I could honestly discuss leadership spills, personalities, power plays and finer details of the spill but, I have already written extensively about Leadership Spills in previous posts, particularly “Cleaning up after the Spill” from earlier this year.

Australia hasn’t had a Prime Minister complete a full term of Government since John Howard in 2007.

Before Rudd/Gillard/Rudd/Abbott/Turnbull, John Curtin (Prime Minister during World War two) and Harold Holt (Prime Minister in the late 1960s) were the only Prime Ministers to not complete a term because they died in Office.
Well, if Harold is still alive, he’s taken his sweet time reappearing.

I am honestly torn about how I feel tonight.

Why can’t we just let the axe ‘fall’ on an unpopular Prime Minster at Election time anymore?

Will what happened tonight be viewed as necessary in hindsight?

I am not a fan of Leadership spills, personally. I think they are a jilted and underhanded way of determining who fills a very prominent position. But then again, we as the people just vote for the Member, not the Leader (like the Americans do in the Presidential system).

Should the two major Australian parties consider putting forward more than one candidate for Federal elections?

Good idea in theory…. it would add another name to the Ballot papers and probably result in the splitting and formation of new (potentially smaller) political parties.

Right now, Australia needs a Prime Minster to do the job of leading a country. Hard decisions, media appearances and shaking hands/kissing babies. The last 5 years of coup culture have been ridiculous, and the backing-and-forthing and policy backflips have quite frankly insulted the intelligence of Australian voters.

Federal Politicians should be worried – we as the voters are starting to (rightfully) expect stronger moral fibre and character from our elected representatives. Public office is not for the faint hearted. If we wanted just one person to make decisions without consulting Cabinet, we’d just put the names of Leaders on the Ballot papers.

Looking at tonight initially, the outcome seems to be popular. As for me, we’ll see how Prime Minister Turnbull goes.After the last 5 years, he’d better not stuff it up!

So a Government worker friend of mine tells me, a lot of people who worked for former Prime Minister Abbott would have lost their jobs tonight. Which is a sombre reality of leadership change.
Also, tonight will be a night of nervous sleep for many Ministers – they could very well be out of a job (relegated to the backbench) this week. along with some of their own staffers.