Liberal Party of Australia. - Battlelines

MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY PRESS

An imprint of Melbourne University Publishing Limited

1115 Argyle Place South, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia

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First published 2009

Reprinted 2009

Updated edition published 2009

This edition published 2013

Text Tony Abbott, 2009, 2013

Design and typography Melbourne University Publishing Limited, 2013

This book is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means or process whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publishers.

Every attempt has been made to locate the copyright holders for material quoted in this book. Any person or organisation that may have been overlooked or misattributed may contact the publisher.

Text design by Phil Campbell

Typeset by TypeSkill

Printed in Australia by McPhersons Printing Group

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

Abbott, Tony, 1957

Battlelines/Tony Abbott.

Updated Ed.

978522864423 (pbk.)

Bibliography

Abbott, Tony, 1957

Liberal Party of Australia.

PoliticiansAustraliaBiography.

ConservatismAustralia.

Social predictionAustralia.

AustraliaPolitics and government1996

994.066092

To Louise, Frances and Bridget

Political parties and their leaders need values and principles to sustain them. The quest for power must have a greater purpose than merely keeping us in and keeping them out. Battlelines was partly personal story and partly political philosophy, but mostly it was my attempt to bring values tested by experience to the challenges our country faced.

For me, as for every leader of the Liberal Party, encouragement for the family, support for small business and respect for values and institutions that have stood the test of time are at the heart of my public life.

Battlelines was first published well before I became party leader. Any one persons vision, even the leaders, is necessarily tempered and refined by the passage of time and by the collective responsibility that is rightly at the heart of our political system. Still, its worth republishing, now that our country is once more on the verge of choosing its government and its leader, so that Australians have the best possible chance to make an informed choice.

Late last year, the Liberal Party published a collection of my landmark speeches developing the Coalitions positive plans for a stronger and more prosperous economy and for a safe and secure Australia. Earlier this year, the party released our Real Solutions Plan for Australia, which assembled the specific policy commitments that the Coalition has already made for the coming election. These are available to download at www.liberal.org.au.

Unlike them, Battlelines is not an official party document. It didnt undergo the consultation and refinement of a major speech by a party leader. It wasnt directed to an immediate political challenge or opportunity. It was my personal attempt to grasp a post-Howard vision for my party and for the conservative side of politics as well as an element in renewing my personal commitment to public life in the aftermath of a wrenching defeat.

Obviously, there were some proposals in Battlelines (such as the referendum to give the Commonwealth more authority over the states) that were the product of Howard-era frustrations with hostile state governments. The past five years have been a good antidote to the view that political wisdom mostly resides in Canberra. As well, Coalition rule in the big states means that an incoming Coalition government in Canberra should have more willing partners with whom to work.

There were suggestions in Battlelines for a tax cut for families with dependent children and also for a Medicare-style system of dental rebates that should not be considered until the Commonwealth budget is again in strong surplus. There was also the suggestion of a fundamental reconsideration of the way retirement savings might be handled that would not be practical given the way the superannuation system has become entrenched. There was also a fleeting consideration of covenant marriage that I would no longer support.

Since Battlelines was published prior to the last election, WorkChoices has been killed, buried and cremated. The past is the past and we will never go back to it. The fundamental problem with the former governments policy in this area was that it broke faith with the Howard battlers, who felt betrayed by changes for which no mandate had ever been sought. For the coming election, the Coalitions workplace policy will be careful, cautious, responsible change within the framework of the Fair Work Act, focused on solving practical problems rather than applying economic theory.

On the other hand, Battlelines proposals for community-managed public hospitals and for independent public schools drew on the work of the Kennett government in Victoria and of the Barnett government in Western Australia. Should the Coalition win this years election, it would be relatively easy to negotiate a way forward on these with the states.

Battlelines contention that theres a relatively happy marriage between liberalism and conservatism thanks to a long tradition of freedom in Westminster-derived polities has, in my judgment, been vindicated by the relative absence of internal party ideological disputes over the past few years.

I hope Battlelines latest readers will notice a substantial unity and coherence between my thinking in 2009 when the book came out and the policy commitments that the Coalition has made since I became leader. Over the years, I have changed my mind on some vexed questions (such as multiculturalism and paid parental leave) but this is because I have reconsidered the application of principles, not changed them.

A preference for freedom, for trusting people to get most things right most of the time, and for individuals knowing their best interests better than officials do, pervades all the Coalitions significant policy commitments.

The difference between the Coalition and its opponents is not that one side supports a fair go for the vulnerable and the other doesnt. The contest is not between one party that is moral and another that isnt. I am a Liberal because Im convinced that its our policiesrather than Laborsthat will most effectively produce the fairer, freer and more prosperous society that almost every Australian wants.

With more than 2 million more jobs, a 20 per centplus increase in real wages, and a doubling of real net wealth per person, the Howard government could justly claim to have had the best interests of workers at heart. Whats more, our party is much more broadly based than the contemporary Labor Party, which has been colonised by an apparatchik class of former union and party officials.

As liberals, the Coalition supports lower taxes, smaller government and greater freedom. As conservatives, we support the family and values that have been proven over time. As pragmatists, we support policies that pass the common-sense test and that can reasonably be expected to make our country stronger: hence, my occasional description of the Coalitions political philosophy as pragmatism based on values.

The main policy commitments of an incoming Coalition government are already clear. We will: