‘Unelectable’ Abbott likely to be Australia’s new PM

CANBERRA — Leader of Australia’s opposition, Mr Tony Abbott, was once dubbed “unelectable” by a former boss, but as elections near, he seems certain to become Prime Minister.

The 55-year-old conservative has never been very popular nationally. His Liberal Party colleagues elected him their leader by only a single vote in 2009. “Polarising” is an adjective often used to describe him.

An unpopular government bloodied by infighting could have aided Mr Abbott’s rise. He was notoriously branded “a misogynist” and “sexist” by Australia’s first female Prime Minister Julia Gillard in a speech to Parliament last year.

Ms Gillard’s own Labor party ousted her in June and replaced her with Mr Kevin Rudd, in what appears to have been a vain attempt to produce a surprise election victory.

Mr Abbott’s Liberal-National Party coalition now holds a commanding lead in opinion polls, though the man himself pipped Prime Minister Rudd in popularity only this week in a poll by researcher Newspoll.

Labor has argued that its opponent’s success is due in part to uncritical coverage provided through the five-week election campaign by News Corp, which controls 70 per cent of Australia’s newspapers, where Mr Abbott has been glorified with headlines such as “Australia Needs Tony”.

“Conviction politicians hard to find anywhere. Australia’s Tony Abbott rare exception,” Mr Rupert Murdoch, Chairman of News Corp, tweeted last month. “Opponent Rudd all over the place convincing nobody.”

Several recent gaffes do not appear to have harmed Mr Abbott’s prospects. He was criticised for listing a female candidate’s “sex appeal” as a political asset, then defending himself by calling it a “charming compliment”. He accidentally drew laughter by saying that no one is “the suppository of all wisdom”.

“He’s basically an old-fashioned bloke,” feminist Eva Cox said. “He doesn’t really recognise that social change is a really important part of what’s happened over the last 30 to 40 years.”

Married with three grown daughters, Mr Abbott is a volunteer surf lifesaver and firefighter whom cartoonists often depict in nothing but Speedos and the iconic red-and-yellow cap of the Australian lifeguard.

He was an amateur boxer at Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. At Sydney University, he knocked out Mr Joe Hockey — now a lawmaker poised to take over the Treasury in an Abbott government.

A student newspaper editor took a 20-year-old Abbott to court, accusing him of groping her during a student debate in 1977. The indecent assault charge was dismissed.

Last year, an old political rival from his university days alleged that he punched a wall next to her head while trying to intimidate her, which Mr Abbott denied.

Mr Abbott spent three years in a Sydney seminary training to become a Roman Catholic priest and his nickname is “The Mad Monk”.

Former Liberal leader John Hewson, who employed Mr Abbott as a Press Secretary until he lost the 1993 election, described Mr Abbott as “unelectable” a few years ago.

What Mr Abbott refers to as his signature policy of the election campaign is a divisive, paid maternity leave plan that would cost A$5.5 billion (S$6.4 billion) a year.

Mothers would get the taxpayer-funded equivalent of their salaries for six months to stay home with newborns. Currently, the government gives new mothers 18 weeks of minimum-wage pay: A$622.10 a week.

The proposed benefit would be capped at A$75,000, regardless of how wealthy mothers are.

Labor dismisses it as “AU$75,000 for millionaires”. AP