THE screaming subtext of Susan Mitchell’s political potboiler, Tony Abbott: A Man’s Man, is that no woman should ever vote for him. Yet almost no one who knows Abbott, however much he or she might disagree with him, would dismiss him as a misogynist.
The judgement of Adele Horin (no fan) was that Abbott was ”easy to hate” but also ”easy to like”. Mia Freedman – whose reaction to Abbott’s accession to the leadership was: ”PS Libs, are you on crack?” – said after actually talking to him: ”I did like …

TWO things are clear. In this year’s federal election Queensland will be the most crucial state, followed by NSW. To win seats off the ALP, let alone become prime minister, Tony Abbott will need to beat Kevin Rudd’s slick campaigning style and election techniques, most of which the Prime Minister learned in Queensland.
The issue for Abbott now is to do the in depth homework to position himself with a tactical and policy armoury to lead in to the actual campaign. He needs especially to understand how campaigns have been run …

THE adventures of Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne’s 1873 novel ‘Around The World In Eighty Days’, remind us of the epic journey that lies ahead for Opposition Leader Tony Abbott. Fogg accepted a wager that required him to circumnavigate the globe, by whatever transport means then available, in a seemingly impossible 80 days.
Fogg and his valet, Passepartout, set off from London on an improbable adventure overcoming all manner of obstacles to arrive back home with just minutes to spare to collect on the bet.
As Abbott and Julie Bishop notch up …

TONY Abbott should not be underestimated. His direct approach to politics will have a powerful appeal to regional Australia. Abbott may have a Sydney seat in federal parliament but his greatest appeal may be outside NSW.
Too often much of Australia’s daily media coverage is Canberra-centric and political mood changes in states such as Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania are not likely to be detected in Canberra until a Newspoll or election result has highlighted them.
The reality is the new federal Opposition Leader’s direct, knockabout, open style will be …

THE immediate interpretation by much of the media of Tony Abbott’s first federal shadow ministry is that it is a turn to the Right for the Liberal Party and a return to some of the warhorses of the past. In some respects this is true.
But the first decisions by Abbott with respect to his personnel are more multi-layered than that.
In a much-needed move, Malcolm Turnbull, who in recent days has behaved like a petulant narcissist, has been replaced by the much more formidable Abbott.
But otherwise the opposition’s key leadership group …

London-born NSW Rhodes scholar, priest, journalist, volunteer fire-fighter, and parliamentarian, Tony Abbott has been the federal member for Warringhah on Sydney’s northern beaches since 1994.A longtime devotee of B.A (Bob) Santamaria, and a fearless champion of Catholic action and of what he terms ‘the evolving family’, the feisty Abbott has a reputation of being the Liberal Party’s most relentless parliamentary pugilist and ideological warrior.
Yet, apart from a deep commitment to key conservative values, to those who don’t know him personally Battlelines demonstrates an appealing vulnerability in Abbott that is often …