Lazarus with a Triple Bypass and Steroids?

Back in 1987, John Howard described his chances of a comeback as “Lazarus with a triple bypass”. Howard had suffered a humiliating defeat against Bob Hawke and seemed done for good with politics. Less than a decade later, he went on to become Australia’s longest-serving PM.

Could Tony Abbott be Lazarus 2.0?

Abbott has been in political exile since being knifed by Malcolm Turnbull, but there have been recent whispers of a possible comeback effort. The time may be ripe. Peter Dutton is doing a solid job as opposition leader. He’s staring down the wet wing of the party (federally, at least) which has done so much damage to the Liberals’ brand among their core voters. He’s making important stands on key issues, from the Voice, to nuclear energy.

The problem is, though, as Cam noted in our recent conversation: he’s bald. Silly as it may seem, for all that politics is showbiz for ugly people, there are limits.

More importantly, Abbott is a political fighter par excellence. It should never be forgotten that he took the Liberals from crushing defeat to within a within a whisker of regaining government in a single term. At the next election, he steamrolled Labor.

In 1999, Abbott was the highest profile opponent of the ill-fated Republic referendum. Now, he’s delivered a devastating broadside against the Voice referendum — which just happens to sound very much like a campaign speech.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott has invoked the spirit of US civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr and late Labor legend Bob Hawke in an attack on an Indigenous voice to parliament.

Speaking at an Institute of Public Affairs event in Perth on Wednesday night, Mr Abbott said a successful referendum on the voice would “entrench victimhood in our constitution forever”.

“The past isn’t perfect, but our responsibility is to make the present and the future as good as we humanly can. This generation of migrants and the descendants of migrants are not oppressors. This generation of Indigenous people are not victims.

“Citing … the wonderful words of Bob Hawke back on Australia Day in 1988, ‘we are a country with no hierarchy of descent. We are a country with no privilege of origin’.

“Citing the immortal words of Martin Luther King from an earlier generation, ‘I want to live in a country where my four children are judged not by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character’.

“My absolute desire is that we can go forward as one equal people and that’s why I’ll be voting no. Because I absolutely reject any suggestion that there is something fundamentally wrong with this great country, Australia.”

But Abbott’s speech went even further. The Voice referendum, he argued, is not just a referendum on the Voice itself: it’s a referendum on the whole, crazy, woke war on mainstream Australia.

He said the coming referendum would also give Australians an opportunity to cast judgment on “some of the crazy things that have been happening in our country”.

“I’ll be voting no to a few things. I’ll be voting no to the voice, sure, but I’ll be voting no to the climate cult, I’ll be voting out … the virus hysteria, I’ll be voting no to the gender fluidity crisis, I’ll be voting no to the ‘Magic Pudding’ economics.

“And I’ll be voting no to this crazy cultural self-loathing that afflicts this country along with so many other countries of the English speaking world, which should know better.”

The Australian

Abbott received a standing ovation. This is just the stuff the Liberals’ base have been waiting to hear. Especially when their party too often seems to be trying too hard to alienate its rank and file.

Tony Abbott says the Liberal Party no longer respects its membership and looks like “an insiders’ club” with factions dominating the party’s organisational wing and stifling the rights and voices of local members […]

“All too often, the party looks like an insiders’ club that wants to keep outsiders – everyday citizens who normally vote Liberal and respect the party of Menzies and (John) Howard – at arm’s length” […]

Mr Abbott said the modern version of Menzies’ “forgotten people” – first articulated in a May 1942 broadcast – are now small business owners and those who work a trade, and the Liberal Party should continue to represent their interests and aspirations.

“I think it’s closer than ever to representing Menzies’ ‘forgotten people’, or their modern equivalents, the small business people, the tradies, the people who ‘have a go’ and want the government to respect their efforts, all the people who aspire to do better.

The Australian

But Abbott’s biggest problem was that he was a devastatingly effective opposition leader — not so much as a PM. In government, he made two fatal mistakes: thinking he could break an election promise and get away with it, and taking notice of the media.

Should he indeed make a comeback as Liberal leader, those are two lessons he’ll have to learn.