Tony Abbott has the experience in government to be Prime Minister - the rest of his team might struggle to pass the same test

The Leader of the Opposition has passionate critics and defenders. While I accept some of their insights, neither group convinces me.

The passionate critics, including Susan Mitchell in her book, Tony Abbott: A Man's Man, describe him as a danger to women and to democracy, especially secular democracy.

The passionate defenders, including several senior media commentators, dismiss any criticism of his social policies as anti-Catholic sectarianism.

But there is a middle-ground. In my opinion Abbott has been far too negative in his interpretation of the role of Leader of the Opposition and in general he is one of the worst examples in Parliament of angry competitiveness.

He also has several other weaknesses, including unpredictability and policy positions, such as turn back the boats, with which I strongly disagree.

But in general terms he has had a perfectly respectable preparation for the office of PM since he entered Parliament in 1994. He held many ministerial and parliamentary secretary roles, including Health and Employment, during the Howard government, rising to seventh in order of precedence in the last Howard cabinet in 2007. By 2013 he will have been in Parliament almost 20 years and Opposition Leader for almost four years, making him more experienced than either Kevin Rudd or Julia Gillard when they became prime minister.

Experience is not everything, of course, because it can be reactionary, but some of the passionate criticisms are matters of taste and judgment.

Abbott certainly does attract more than the usual partisan criticism. Some of this is predictable. For instance, compared to Malcolm Turnbull he is on the Liberal right. Labor voters prefer Turnbull. Coalition voters often prefer right-wing Labor leaders to left-wing ones. That is one reason, though not the only one, why Rudd was popular in 2007. He was perceived as middle of the road or even Howard-lite. Most Labor leaders come from the Right faction, because it is the most powerful, or like Gillard behave in a right-wing Labor way.

Are there any parallels? One may be sexist criticism of the Prime Minister. She has been subject to heated criticism, some related to her gender. Senator Bob Brown is right. It may not be the origin of many of the attacks on her but her gender is a factor.

Discussion of Abbott also recalls some of the early criticism of Malcolm Fraser (almost unrecognisable now because we have forgotten the intensity of feeling in the 1970s). Some of that stemmed from anger at the 1975 constitutional crisis and the sacking of Gough Whitlam. But some was related to his upper class mannerisms, his posh accent, Oxford education and wealthy Western Districts lifestyle. Some of this feeling is captured in an early political profile by John Edwards called Life Wasn't Meant to be Easy (1977). The cover photograph has Fraser looking every bit the aristocrat mounted on his thoroughbred. Class, religion and gender can become political issues.

The other aspect of Abbott is his team. He clearly thinks it is a strength and so plays it up, partly because it links him to the Howard era. Abbott claims that, '' We've done it before and we will do it again. After all, 16 members of the current shadow cabinet were ministers in the Howard government, which now looks like a lost golden age of reform and prosperity.''

Newspaper columnist Tom Dusevic has crunched the numbers and put this claim in perspective. Howard's last cabinet had 18 members of whom eight remain and of whom seven, excluding the ageing Philip Ruddock, may feature in an Abbott ministry. Of these, Dusevic concludes, only two or three (Abbott, Warren Truss and maybe Joe Hockey and/or Kevin Andrews) were Howard government mainstays. The others were promoted very late in the day.

That's OK. Alternation of government means alternation of ministers and considerable alternation is often desirable. Long periods of government mean that the opposition runs out of ministerial experience, but when new governments fall too early then there is not much new opposition blood at all.

The Rudd and Gillard governments had too little previous ministerial experience after 12 years of Howard and only Simon Crean has played a major role. The Howard government didn't have much either after 13 years of Hawke and Keating, though it did have Howard himself who had been treasurer. Hawke had no ministerial experience and Keating very little. But Hawke is usually ranked as one of Australia's outstanding prime ministers.

Abbott boasts about his team for two reasons. The Labor period is relatively short so far and the government has lost its early popularity. The Howard era retains some of its gloss. Nevertheless Dusevic concludes that the Abbott team is the Howard B team. It has weak links and, like all oppositions, its members are largely untested in the top jobs. Good performers in junior portfolios can fall short in the big jobs such as Treasury, Foreign Affairs and Defence. In that sense oppositions are always the B team.

An opposition must show that it is adequate and will learn on the job not that it is better than the government. In that sense the Abbott team passes muster but it is not superior to the government.

Abbott is let down by whatever talent the Nationals can offer him and his own Liberals are weak and/or untested in some key portfolios. He should cast off some of the older Howard-era ministers such as Bronwyn Bishop and give youth a chance. His adulation of Howard and his era brings with it an unhealthy attachment to those who played a part in it and blinds him to their weaknesses.

John Warhurst is an emeritus professor of political science at the Australian National University.

John.Warhurst@anu.edu.au   

Abbott's Own Test Of Character