For how much longer Tony Abbott will continue as Prime Minister no one knows but it could be over soon with a ballot highly likely next week as late on Tuesday night (3/2/15) members of his own party called for him to resign.
People are blaming the many mistakes Abbott has made but there are 2 mistakes that have not received a great deal of focus from the media that are worth looking at because both were and still are very damaging.
One was the Knighthood of Angus Houston who is the former leader of the Australian Defence Force and someone I have written about a couple of times. The second was Tony Abbott’s attack on social media users in an attempt to down play criticism of the Knighthood of Prince Philip.
Angus Houston
When Angus Houston was the Chief of the Defence Force (2005-2011) he was up to his neck in denying justice and compensation to women who were sexually abused and other abuse victims were also denied justice.
I wrote an article in April 2011 titled “How the Defence Minister Stephen Smith and others cover up the sexual abuse of women” (Click here to read the article) and followed it up in July 2011 with another article on the matter titled “Going Jack – Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston” (Click here to read the article)
Abuse victims who had their complaints stonewalled and swept under the carpet for years by Angus Houston would have been horrified when Tony Abbott read out Houston’s name for the Knighthood. This would have lost Mr Abbott and the Liberal Party plenty of support. While the Knighthood of Prince Philip was embarrassing nationally so was the Angus Houston appointment to a lot of people who know his many failings.
In April 2011 the government set up the Defence Abuse Response Taskforce because the problem had become so bad. (Click here to read more) Angus Houston resigned in July 2011 as a disgrace and should never have received any award let alone a Knighthood.
(Click anywhere on the above video to watch)
Attacking Social Media is fatal for politicians because they are then taking on the world
For any politician to attack or insult social media users is political suicide. On Australia Day Tony Abbott attacked all social media users who did not agree with the Knighthood of Prince Philip and what made it even worse is that many of them are Liberal voters. Abbott said “Social media is kind of like electronic graffiti and I think that in the media, you make a big mistake to pay too much attention to social media” (Click here to read more)
Abbott attacked social media even further in the above video and said that social media “has as much credibility as graffiti”. He was in effect attacking everyone who uses social media. What makes the comment strange is that the government spends millions to monitor social media and Abbott would have to be aware of it as it is run by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. The SMH reported:
“The Abbott government has created a hub of 37 communication and social media specialists to monitor social media and offer strategic communications advice costing taxpayers almost $4.3 million a year.” (Click here to read more)
The phones of the federal Liberal MPs would have been ringing continuously from their own supporters complaining about Prime Minister Abbott. You can attack the opposition all day every day but once you start attacking your own supporters you are stuffed. And that is why Tony Abbott is in so much trouble. It is pretty much all his own doing.
If Tony Abbott loses the expected ballot next week whoever ends up leader will probably not be much better than Abbott. Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before things get better. I thought we had bottomed out with Gillard and Rudd but it looks like we have further to go and it could last a few years.
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