2012: The year Tony Abbott must prove himself as a credible "alternative PM"

By all accounts Tony Abbott has been a very effective opposition leader since the election day in 2010. Despite all his detractors' protestation, his job as opposition leader is & will be to attempt to block any government policy his side of politics does not agree with, and to win votes in the process.

However, 2012 will be a year Abbott must firstly demonstrate his policy credentials, and then prove his leadership abilities as a credible alternative PM.

Julia Gillard has by any definition enjoyed a great run in the past few weeks. She passed her poisoned "Carbon Tax" as well as the "Mining Resources Supertax" through the Lower House. She's been seen as a decisive leader in the world stage & has improved her fragile numbers in the Lower House by one!

She has truly put an end to her rocky 2011 with a bang! Despite her earlier comments about lack of interest in foreign policy, she is finishing the year in full appreciation of what wonders "Foreign Affairs" can do to make any leader look decisive & worldly! From hosting the Queen to enjoying the "Obamarama" in standing shoulder to shoulder with the US President, to lecturing European leaders about economic management whilst hosting Asian Leaders.....

And to top it all, for the first time during her reign as the PM, she managed a superb coup without a single leak by her eternal enemies in Labor Party & surprised the opposition this week by increasing her slim & fragile majority by one vote in the Lower House. This will potentially neutralise the "Poker Machine" issue from the already shrinking war cupboard of Tony Abbott.

All of the above leave Tony Abbott in a very sticky situation for 2012. He has only the "Boat People" issue as an unresolved matter to hang on to. Whilst he can & will continue to attack the carbon & mining tax, the truth is he is now fully exposed & can no longer hide behind "problematic issues of the minority Government".

Whilst it is still probably true that no matter what Gillard & Labor do, voters will be waiting with what a prominent journalist in the media recently termed "their baseball bats at the polls in 2013", the fact is 2012 will be a make or break year for Tony Abbott too. No matter what happens to Gillard & her fragile minority alliance with the Greens & independents, and no matter how the likes of Bill Shorten & Mark Arbib & the rest of faceless poll driven & self promoting men of Labor play their cards with Julia Gillard's leadership, Tony Abbot must prove himself as a credible alternative prime minister with at leasts some credible & fully costed policy platforms in 2012 or face the potential consequences.

If on the other hand Abbott decides to continue to ignore major policy fronts such as IR & simply continues with his current war of attrition & solely relies on the apparent comfortable lead the opposition enjoys in the polls on the two party preferred basis, he may find 2012 a lot less enjoyable as the opposition leader than 2011!

Australia, a multi speed economy with a minority government paralised by instability

Australia weathered the global financial crisis better than her European & north American counterparts, thanks to the resources hungry economies of South East Asia & India.

Regrettably however, we have inherited a multi-speed economy with many sectors in varying degrees of recessionary difficulties, a minority government that is hostage to its independent MPs & the Greens, a PM tarnished by her inability to demonstrate any political conviction, and her failure to implement any of her main stated policies, and worst of all a Reserve Bank that is simply in denial about the recessionary state of many sectors & is has remained obsessed with controlling inflation, which by the way does not even exists in many sectors, most notably in retail which is being crushed by deflationary pressures.

As a result, the political game in Canberra has simply become a war of attrition between a much weakened PM who has to constantly watch her back, and an opposition that has mastered, albeit unproductively for the nation, the art of negativity.

Meanwhile, the government has failed to address any of the fundamental issues facing retail, construction, tourism & manufacturing sectors (to name a few) all of which comprise of many small struggling privately owned businesses.

At the same time, the Qantas confrontation has highlighted the inflexibility of Julia Gillard's "Fairwork" legislation & how it has reversed most of the IR reforms of the past two decades.

And to make matters worse, the self serving powerbroker elements in Labor party such as Bill Shorten, continue their rather superficial & patronising public support for the PM whilst they adoringly look at themselves in the mirror every morning & see the future PM smiling back at them!

It has taken more than 25 years of continuous reform to take Australia to its current dizzy heights. The current PM & her incompetent team around her are unravelling everything in the space of 2.5 years!