Why the Hell Would Tony Abbott Recontest His Seat?

Back in November, before I believed this could ever actually happen, I accurately predicted Tony Abbott would position himself for re-election:

It's unlikely that Abbott, who is every bit as ambitious as every other career politician who eyed off the top job, is so committed to being a portfolio-free member representing the people of Warringah, he will happily sit out the rest of his career, or even just another three years, on the back bench.

This weekend, Tony Abbott gave us the Australia Day gift we'd all been wanting. On his website the former PM announced that following months of speculation, he would be seeking nomination for his seat of Warringah at the next election. There were no verbal acrobatics designed to convince us that this is definitely not part one of a 57-part leadership challenge. According to his statement, his real reason for running again is "to ensure that the Warringah Peninsula gets better transport links to the rest of Sydney."

To repeat the question we asked back in November: Why would an ousted prime minister want to recontest his seat? Is it really possible he is so determined to improve public transport for the people of Warringah that he cannot bring himself to leave them? Does he consider himself the only politician able to deliver this Herculean project? Has any former prime minister exhibited such loyalty to their electorate that they're willing to extend the indignity of a backbench demotion?

Another theory was offered to the Daily Telegraph by an unnamed Liberal source, framed thusly: "It's very hard to find a private sector job for a former PM so young." Could it be that Abbott simply needs the work? Is he strapped for cash? The pension package for an ex-PM is around 70 percent of their salary while in office, except to receive that you have to have served for two years. Current Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, in the most epic of burns, ousted Abbott four days before he qualified for it. It's the parliamentary equivalent of being killed one day from retirement.

That theory may seem sort of weird but, in fairness, so does everything else about this glorious clusterfuck.

Unnamed sources told the Daily Telegraph last week that Abbott's former chief of staff, Peta Credlin, has been pushing him to seriously consider taking another swing at the prime ministership. A spokesman for Abbott said the report of Credlin's advice was "fanciful." We would like to point out to Mr. Abbott that no one is disputing that. Believing it would require us to imagine a scenario where Tony hadn't been considering running every minute of every day since last September. Credlin continues to display unswerving loyalty to Abbott, no doubt grateful for all the assistance he gave her during her tenure running the country.

This is all working out wonderfully for Labor, who could do with some good news, the last they're likely to get for at least the next four years. There is no one they'd rather run an election against than post-2015 Tony Abbott. Although they know this will never come to pass, they'll happily leap on the déjà vu schadenfreude of watching Abbott destabilize his own party from the backbench.

In response to all this, leader of the Labor Party Bill Shorten once again did that trick where he leapt at and missed a chance at a pithy pop culture witticism, telling ABC radio: "I don't know about you, but like many Australians, [I] share the relief that Tony Abbott's gone. Although I noticed today that a bit like the Terminator, he's vowing to have Tony Abbott 2.0—he'll be back."

It's doubtful that Shorten is keeping up with all the Hollywood news, but his comparison may have accidentally stumbled into relevancy. Last week, Paramount quietly removed their next Terminator film from their release schedule, replacing it with their ironic remake of Baywatch starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. The simultaneous box office and spelling failure of last year's Terminator: Genisys means that since 2003, Paramount has tried three times to resurrect the franchise and failed. Nobody wants it back.

Maybe that's the lesson Abbott needs to learn. Perhaps he thinks his first prime ministership was The Terminator and his next one will be Judgment Day—the one that contains all the quotes and references you know, and the one that seeped even more successfully into pop culture consciousness than its predecessor. In reality, Abbott's 2013 win was Rise of the Machines, and he's trying to follow it up with, to put it bluntly, a film that has Sam Worthington in it. On the other hand, perhaps he's entirely aware of the release date mishegoss, and he's actually auditioning for Baywatch. You could totally crash Getty Images with the number of red speedo photos Abbott bleached our eyeballs with over the years.

(It's worth noting that if the Abbott government really is the Terminator movies, then perhaps that's why Skynet hasn't taken us over: It could be struggling to achieve sentience thanks to Australia's 19th century copper wiring.)

But, as Bill Shorten so awkwardly reminded us, "I'll be back" is indeed something the Terminator said. And that could be where the real comparison lies. In the past week Abbott's own contribution to language was marked by the Macquarie Dictionary, which announced that its word of the year is "captain's call."

If Tony Abbott was brought down by anything, it was his lack of consultation with his peers, a belief that his head-of-cabinet role was somehow equivalent to being president, monarch, or James Cameron. When Macquarie made "captain's call" its word of the year, it raised the question: How could two words be a single word? Presumably this was due to some sort of meta captain's call at Macquarie. The dictionary chose to define this new entry as "a decision made by a political or business leader without consultation with his colleagues."

This isn't to say Abbott will never be PM again. It's conceivable that if he sticks around long enough, a desperate Liberal Party will restore him to greatness based on name recognition alone. But if Abbott continues under the belief that his legacy will serve him well, then he should really crack open a dictionary.

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