Image via Flickr user Alex Ristea
Well, maybe it is a secret. But it's a secret that everyone knows.
That might sound like a contradiction, but it's a contradiction that feels consistent with Tony Abbott's Prime Ministership. Like when he said he was the best friend that Medicare ever had before introducing an objectively disastrous co-payment option. Or when he said there would be no cuts to the ABC or SBS before announcing cuts to the ABC and SBS. Contradictions are Tony Abbott's wheelhouse.
Abbott had not yet reached two years on the Prime Ministerial clock when he was swiftly replaced by Malcolm Turnbull in September. The coup was a shock to Abbott and nobody else, and yet his reaction was, relatively speaking, graceful. The following morning he gave a speech to the nation's press that promised "no sniping". If Abbott had failed to learn any lessons from his own actions, he had at least learned from those of Kevin Rudd, whose endless undermining of Julia Gillard managed to bring down an entire Labor government, as well as leave a permanent smear on Rudd's own legacy. Rudd still appears baffled as to why Gillard is remembered fondly by the Left, and he remains an outcast.
Abbott does not want to be Kevin Rudd. But he does want to be Prime Minister again.
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He may have been sincere when he made the "no sniping" promise, but like so many of his promises, it was an indicator that he was about to do the exact opposite.
There have been many quotes to the press, but his recent trip to the United Kingdom was a key moment. Abbott remains convinced that his "Stop the boat" rhetoric is the defining aspect of his Prime Ministership. He's right, of course, but not for the reasons he thinks.
His trip to talk to the mother country was part of a comeback tour disguised as a farewell tour. But it revealed the real truth: his message is so outmoded, so hardline that even the UKIP—the party for people who find David Cameron's Tories not nearly conservative enough—find Abbott's policies "tougher than we in Britain can perhaps stomach".
Abbott presumably imagined a warmer reaction from the country of Margaret Thatcher, but even her party thought his speech was "fascistic". We can only presume that was intended as an insult.
This week, Liberal MP Bruce Billson announced his plans to step down at the next election. Billson, who was Abbott's Minister for Small Business, was dropped from the position when Turnbull took the reigns and has been on the backbench ever since. Billson's announcement did not have the ring of bitterness about it, yet he was quite open about the fact that his demotion at the hands of Turnbull has led to him moving on.
And that brings us to the other lesson that Abbott learned from Rudd: a comeback is always, always possible.Labor's panic at being in power led to them quickly ousting Kevin Rudd after he'd won an election, and then quickly ousting Julia Gillard after she'd won an election. In that second panic, they turned to the only other person who had a proven track record: Kevin Rudd. Hoping for a bit more of that Kevin '07 magic, they went running to him on this, the day of his daughter's wedding, even though they'd known one another for many years and Kevin couldn't remember the last time he'd been invited over for a cup of coffee.Recommended: Australia Has Launched its First University Program to Get Women Into Parliament