Ordinarily the first parliamentary sitting week for a new opposition leader is a chance to redefine themselves, introduce new ideas to the public, perhaps break the shackles of received wisdom about their view of the world.
But like John Howard when took the Liberal leadership (again) in 1995, Tony Abbott makes his first parliamentary charge as Opposition Leader this week as a relatively well-known political quantity. So do the cliches about him match the perceptions of people in the street? Being the new leader, and seeing as we did the same number on the Prime Minister and Malcolm Turnbull last year, we decided to ask people some simple questions about what they thought of the Member for Warringah.
So was there a surprise, like in the Rudd survey when people said they perceived the Prime Minister as somehow physically small? Nup; respondents described Abbott almost as a caricature of how he’s caricatured: a straight-talking conservative bruiser, hated by some for his views on social issues, known for them by all.
(If only conventional wisdom was always as accurate as the cliches pinned on Tony Abbott by both sides of politics, there’d be little need for market research companies, pollsters, maybe even opinion websites.)
The graphic above summarises the responses we got last week when people were asked to describe Abbott in three words. Without any prompting, in 82 responses the word “conservative” came up 20 times. People also frequently associate the words strong, honest, religious and misogynist with him.
As a reflection of what people know about an MP’s political principles, the contrast with the Prime Minister couldn’t be more stark. When we conducted the same exercise asking people about Rudd there was a range of comments about his intelligence and handling of the economy but few pointed to core political principles.
While people tended to point to the Prime Minister’s personality traits as talking points, the Abbott responses were full of references to his beliefs. Some liked them, some didn’t.
Encouragingly for Abbott, when people do talk about his personality many Labor supporters see something to like in the guy. Steve, 46, from Mount Druitt, said he “appears honest” and described him as “mature” and “different”. Paul, 43, from Breakfast Point, said Abbott was “straightforward and sensible” and described him as “smart and unassuming”. Both would have voted Labor in an election at the weekend.
A repeated complaint that respondents raised - again, totally unprompted - was a belief that Abbott mixes religion and politics in a way people disapprove of. This was raised by Liberal supporter Matt, 38, from Pyrmont – who clearly had a general approval for Abbott when he described him as “outspoken, smart” and “a head-kicker”.
Matt’s view neatly encapsulates the overall findings of the survey - that Abbott is a strong character and forthright in expressing his views, but there are reservations about the depth of his convictions on certain issues. This contrasts with his opponent Kevin Rudd, who our survey last year found was broadly seen as intelligent and doing well on the economy, but few cared much for his quote-unquote politics.
Given Rudd’s approval ratings this does raise a question of whether the politics of politics are bad for leaders. Who cares about underlying political philosophy and things like principles (take, oh, economic conservatism) when people want government to get on with governing?
The survey was taken last week in Sydney over three days. In a week Abbott gave an interview where he almost said women shouldn’t have sex before marriage, perhaps it’s a little unsurprising that his social conservatism would be top of people’s minds.
His views on sex before marriage were specifically raised by 15 people as a negative in our survey. In total 30 people out of the 82 said his views on social issues including gay marriage and abortion were a negative. With the exception of three, these were all committed Labor or Greens voters.
The same number of people (30) mentioned, in some formula, Abbott’s forthright nature as a strength, but these people had a mix of voting preference. Rough translation: people acknowledge Abbott’s straight talk irrespective of how they might vote.
Abbott’s plan as he comes out of the blocks this week was flagged in an email to supporters yesterday with the subject “Parliament is back – and so is Mr Rudd’s big new ETS tax”.
Eight people listed Abbott’s environmental policies among their complaints about him. The number of voters who rated this issue - which won Abbott the leadership - as a strength?
Zero.
Happy new parliamentary calendar year. Should be a dinger.
Punch research journalist Tina Tek contributed to this report.
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