The launch of Tony Abbott’s book, Battlelines, at the Wharf restaurant, under the Harbour Bridge, came on the very day that Malcolm Turnbull recorded his worst Newspoll rating as preferred prime minister – 16 per cent to Kevin Rudd’s 66 per cent.
To the gathered political junkies on Tuesday, it was a not-unexpected omen, with the book seen as Abbott’s first crack at remaking himself as a real contender for the Liberal leadership.
Abbott has never shown any sign of disliking the inference, though insisting it is not his "time", that he is Turnbull’s loyal "lieutenant", and that the book is "not a job application, because I expect the existing team will lead the party to the next election", which of course suits him perfectly well, given Rudd’s popularity. He has simply used the spare time of opposition to write a crisp 182-page part-memoir/part rallying cry, explaining Australian conservatism, his own beliefs and some of the experiences that have formed them.
Writing the book was also therapy after the dog days of the last election, serving to reinvigorate his desire to persist with his "vocation". But it also firmly badges him as the "Liberal Party’s intellectual", as Louise Adler, of Melbourne University Press, described him on Tuesday.
It is a real point of difference with the affable Joe Hockey, who shows up in opinion polls as more electable than Abbott, but could hardly be accused of deep thinking, and with Turnbull who, while also a good writer and former journalist, is too busy with the day-to-day drudgery as Opposition Leader to write a book, and may, in any case, be burdened by the lawyer’s preoccupation with detail over vision.
It has also given Abbott the chance to neutralise his reputation negatives, especially the "Captain Catholic" label he was given when, as health minister, he made the reasonable point that Australia’s abortion rate of up to 100,000 abortions every year was far too high.
So on Tuesday it was New Tony on the podium, not the Mad Monk, Captain Catholic or Howard’s head-kicker, and his choice to launch the book, Sarah Murdoch, model, TV presenter and wife of media scion Lachlan Murdoch, said it all.
This was no pugilist Tony, snarling at Nicola Roxon, discombobulated by Julia Gillard’s flirtatious steel. It was a softer, gentler version, praised and loved by women, with his devoted wife, Margie, and three willowy daughters further evidence of his female-friendly persona – a must in any election, since opinion polls show the Coalition is faring worse with female voters than with male.
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Turnbull didn’t seem threatened by Abbott, arriving full of bonhomie, as promised, at Lucio’s about 3pm. He just looked worn down by relentlessly bad opinion polls, even after a week spent on his farm at Scone, decompressing after the ravages of the so-called utegate affair.
Quite different in style, the two men are remarkably similar in outlook – both Catholic and intellectually able, they are driven by the idea of duty and politics as a vocation, and their competition serves the country well.
But the underdog often has the upper hand in civilised contests. And Turnbull may be better equipped for the nuts and bolts leadership that would have made him the best premier of NSW, as Senator Bill Heffernan tried to urge him to be.
After Turnbull and Abbott left the restaurant, those who stayed behind to drink dessert wine theorised that Turnbull’s demeanour showed he is not as ‘‘resilient’’ as Abbott and Howard, not as able to withstand the bouts of unpopularity that are an inevitable part of politics.
That may be wishful thinking, and perhaps the polls underestimate Turnbull’s rattling effect on the Prime Minister. Rudd has been known to gaze out from the veranda of Kirribilli House across the glittering harbour to Turnbull’s waterfront mansion in Point Piper, and wonder aloud if Turnbull is gazing back at him.
