Even most of the Liberal Party don’t want Abbott
Posted by John, February 9th, 2015 - under Uncategorised.
Tags: Abbott, Abbott government
The Liberal party room voted 61 against a motion for a spill of leadership positions and 39 for a spill so the motion was defeated. Abbott is still Prime Minister.
However with almost 40% of those allowed to vote freely opposing him, his position is untenable, perhaps in the short term but certainly in the medium term. If we assume that there was cabinet solidarity, and apply that 40% against to cabinet and the parliamentary secretaries etc, then the majority of Federal Liberal parliamentarians don’t want Abbott either.
To put it another way: the figure of solidarity was higher I think than just the inner cabinet. Including outer ministry and parliamentary secretaries who may have voted for him out of misguided solidarity it could have been as high as 36. That means those who voted freely were possibly 64, 39 of whom opposed Abbott and 25 who voted for him.
Is there an alternative? Can we survive 19 more months of rabid neoliberalism, of overt and covert attempts to shift more wealth from labour to capital and of a thoroughly neoliberal Labor Party waiting in the wings with the same goal? The Australian Council of Trade Unions has called nationwide demonstrations on 4 March to defend our rights.
Let’s make this the first step in destroying this weak Liberal and National Party government and putting some social democratic spine into Labor. We need mass mobilisations to throw Abbott and his motley crew out and to move Labor to the left or to create a new left. Demonstrations and strikes are the way forward.
