Abbott the author of his own crisis

IF NEW ZEALAND politics has seemed unusually stable these past 15 years, during the long Helen Clark and John Key governments, look across the Tasman to see how different it could easily be.

An extraordinary week in Australian politics has reduced Prime Minister Tony Abbott to a desperate, lurching state, like a boxer about to hit the canvas. He tried throwing a defiant shot or two – ditching his signature parental leave policy, promising new tax cuts and stressing how disastrous the coups of the previous Labor government were.

Perhaps it will work: no-one has yet emerged as a definite challenger to Abbott, though backbench MPs are openly dissenting and state politicians calling his leadership ‘‘terminal’’.

The bookmakers aren’t convinced, predicting Abbott will go before the end of the year. His approval ratings are so low, and his term already a litany of disasters: a radical cost-cutting Budget, an incorrigibly cocky style, and, most recently, his bizarre decision to award a knighthood to Prince Philip.

If he is deposed, it will continue a wild sequence in Australian politics. The bitter wars between former leaders Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd are still fresh. One-term state governments are tumbling, partly due to their association with Abbott. And now the Liberal Party, long Australia’s default party of government, is tearing itself apart only eighteen months into its term.

Political cliches are being busted, especially the one that says the voters always give a new government time to prove itself. Australian voters have clearly had enough of that.

There is no good option for Abbott or the Liberals. If Abbott stays, he will still have his miserable public image – and new baggage. If there is a putsch, the party will have its own instability issue, and perhaps another divisive leader (one contender, Malcolm Turnbull, faces an ‘‘Anyone but Turnbull’’ faction, which sounds familiar).

The contrast with New Zealand is striking. Key would surely say, as he has before, that his success is down to moving slowly on his priorities, taking people with him. He even advised justdumped Queensland Premier Campbell Newman to slow down his privatisation agenda and work ‘‘incrementally’’.

Clark, too, was often cautious, especially early on in her tenure. Bolder policies like Working for Families and interest-free student loans came later.

Perhaps MMP has encouraged this caution. Perhaps it is simply the personality of our recent leaders. Perhaps it is that New Zealand had seriously reformist government from the 1980s, and voters don’t want to return to that breakneck pace.

Abbott certainly tried that approach. His Budget was an act of recklessness – an unfair, unexpected response to an overhyped crisis. Voters thought as much, and there’s a straight line between it and his current nightmare.

In the end, it’s the polls that do it. Key has never faced the whisper of a challenge because of his incredible popularity. Clark held her government together with strong personal approval ratings and quick discipline.

Abbott is sinking fast because he lost the trust of the ordinary person.