Why Tony Abbott Must Resign

Why Tony Abbott Must Resign

This blog is intended to say something original. I don't post every day because I cant always come up with an original idea every day. But today i'm going to echo the blogosphere and the people at large and call for Tony Abbott to step down as PM. We all know he won't go willingly, but in the end he must go.

My Charges Against Mr Abbott

He has used executive power against political opponents:

Tony Abbott has broken convention in using the power of Royal Commissions to attack his political opponents. Royal Commissions are established by the Governor general on the advice of the Government of the day. They are controlled by the Prime Minister.

The first Commission I have a problem with is the Royal Commission into the Home Insulation Scheme. Abbott dragged Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd and Peter Garrett into a quasi court in a bid to punish them after their time in Government. Their only crime? To be on the left of the political spectrum.

The Home Insulation Scheme was a policy of the Rudd Govt to insulate home free of charge in an attempt to reduce heating costs, lower greenhouse gas emissions, stimulate the economy after the global financial crisis and lower unemployment. In order to overcome the looming recession caused by global financial crisis this programme had to move quickly.

Mistakes were assuredly made. Contractors cut corners. Some roofs were accidentally electrified and some homes were burned down. 4 people died in this programme. But Mr Rudd/Ms Gillard and Mr Garrett most certainly didn't light those fires or electrocute those workers. That was shoddy work from contractors breaking the law.

Even John Howard was uncomfortable with this kind of political punishment.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/john-howard-uneasy-over-royal-commissions-into-labor-policies/story-fn59niix-1227058304540

But making his former mentor uncomfortable didn't deter Mr Abbott from a second Royal Commission. This one was into the union movement. There was some evidence of corruption in the Union movement, more has been brought to light by the Royal Commission, but the real reason behind having it was to get Bill Shorten on the stand and make him look untrustworthy by flinging mud at him. It was working to a degree until news of the Commissioner Dyson Heydon's agreement to speak at a Liberal Party fundraiser. The fact that he hasn't recused himself yet is just dumb. Because as the illustrious Judge has proclaimed himself:

"It is fundamental to the administration of justice that the judge be neutral,.......It is for this reason that the appearance of departure from neutrality is a ground of disqualification … because the rule is concerned with the appearance of bias, and not the actuality, it is the perception of the hypothetical observer that provides the yardstick."

So in my opinion, this Royal Commission was set up to smear Bill Shorten. It's fundamentally a political operation of the Liberal Party and no High Court Judge should have taken the job. The judge they got was biased because you have to put good party men in the job if you want the correct outcome I.E. The smearing of the opposition leader.

So Mr Abbott is misusing executive power to attack his enemies.

Why does this matter? The misuse of executive power to attack political opponents is a reoccurring theme throughout history and almost always leads to dysfunctional governments. It was a large part of the reason that the Roman Republic became ungovernable as a Republic and led to the installation of the Emperors.

 In France the atrocities committed by the Committee for Public Safety began as attacks on their enemies through highly legal means.

I'm not saying that Tony Abbott is a dictator (far from it), but that he is planting seeds that the next PM and the next and the next might abuse.

A second problem is that it leads to an arms race. Abbott will probably lose the next election. Do you think Bill Shorten might retaliate in kind? It's highly likely. I'd suggest a Royal Commission into the Nauru detention centre allegations is likely to happen. As it should. But it should happen because of the groundswell of public opinion as was the case over the Royal Commission into the Catholic Church's abuse of children.

Soon I can foresee a time where PM's will be faced with the prospect of jail time after they lose power. That's the very threat that lead Julius Caesar to cross the Rubicon and bring civil war to the Roman Republic. A war the Republic did not survive.

It's not the next few years I worry about, but a steady escalation of the political arms race. That leads to disfunction and blockage. I hope 50 or 100 years into the future historians won't look back on the Abbott years as an Australian crossing of the rubicon that led to Parliamentary disfunction and years of turmoil.

None of this will happen if Abbott admits he was wrong to prosecute politics by judiciary and hands over the reigns of leadership to someone else.