Abbott - a complex, unlikely leader caught in his own trap

Tony Abbott lived by the political sword, and died by it. Australia's 28th Prime Minister become the latest major politician in this manic new age of instantly disposable leaders to be torn down.

He was elected two years ago to lead Australia with a handsome majority, in the lower house at any rate. Now he is the first Liberal PM to be voted out by his party since 1971, after losing a leadership ballot 54-44 to Malcolm Turnbull.

How did it come to this?

Abbott, 57, was in some respects an unlikely Liberal PM.

He is an action man. A top university boxer who reportedly fought like a threshing machine; a lifesaver, a rural firefighter, an iron man. Cartoonists usually drew him in his red budgie smugglers.

He is incredibly competitive, in sport or politics. That was evident from his days as a warrior of the right in Sydney University politics.

He has the walk of a gunslinger from the old west.

Yet he is a thinker, a Rhodes Scholar, the author of a book about his political philosophy, which is revealingly titled Battlelines. He is aware of the complexities of life, particularly for Aborigines whose needs he champions and among whose remote settlements he has spent significant time.

Abbott is also Catholic. Very Catholic. Jesuit-educated and for a time a seminarian.

At times, his Catholicism has appeared to unduly influence him - particularly when he was John Howard's Health Minister. His opposition to the abortion drug RU486 was a case in point. He was the "Mad Monk" and "Captain Catholic".

In short, he was not your typical Liberal leader. The most atypical, perhaps, since John Gorton, the one who was overthrown in 1971.

When Howard was voted out in 2007, Abbott was scarcely considered as leader. He considered running but worked out he did not have the numbers. Brendan Nelson, to the surprise of many, beat Malcolm Turnbull.

Nelson made no inroads against Kevin Rudd and was soon replaced by Turnbull. The new leader split the party through his support for an emissions trading scheme.

It was this issue, above all, that enabled Abbott to defeat Turnbull by a single vote in December 2009.

Many in Labor assumed Abbott would implode. He had, after all, suggested asbestos campaigner and dying mesothelioma sufferer Bernie Banton may not have been "pure of heart in all things".

Instead, he surprised everyone with his discipline.

Rudd was tossed out in 2010 - with some help from Abbott, but mainly because he was so difficult to work with - and Julia Gillard came in.

In the election that followed a few months later, Abbott outcampaigned her, or at least did fewer silly things. The result was a draw, with Gillard subsequently forming a Government with the support of the bulk of the crossbench.

For the next three years, Abbott singlemindedly set about destroying the Labor Government.

His most effective attack, which he hammered relentlessly, was Gillard's election campaign "lie" that she would not introduce a carbon tax - the "great big tax on everything".

More generally, much that the Government tried to do was opposed. Labor called him Dr No.

And it worked. In desperation Labor turned back to Rudd, who perhaps saved a couple of seats but could not stop Abbott's march to the prime ministership.

He was hailed as the best opposition leader in history. But running the country is another matter.

He got some things done. The carbon and mining taxes went, the boats were all but stopped, major free trade agreements were completed.

But getting savings measures through a diabolical Senate was beyond him, even though he railed against the "debt and deficit disaster" Labor had left.

His team's ability to negotiate with the Senate crossbench was clearly inadequate, Labor successfully labelled some measures unfair, and above all Abbott was breaking his own election promises.

Abbott made a string of promises about cutting funding in the campaign. Now, with few buying his argument that they were negated by his umbrella promise to fix the debt and deficit, he was being undone by the same accusations of lying that he had made against Labor.

The silly thing was he would have won the election without making promises. But he was so determined to leave no stone unturned, no vote uncultivated, in his drive to power that he set a trap for himself.

The whole thing was aggravated by his paid parental leave scheme. This was very much a personal decision, a captain's choice. Never mind that it ran counter to his determination to cut spending.

Captain's calls over knights and dames, particularly knighting Prince Philip, also hurt the monarchist PM.

To save himself from a leadership threat in February, Abbott dumped the PPL and promised to keep out of the knighthood business, but it left him looking foolish.

There were also mutterings from within about not being consulted enough. Feeding into this was widespread dislike - perhaps even fear - of his chief of staff Peta Credlin.

None of this would have mattered much if he had remained popular in the electorate.

But as first-term state Liberal governments fell in Victoria and Queensland, the polls turned savagely against Abbott and his Government. And nothing concentrates the minds of MPs like polls that tell them they will soon be out of a job.

Parting shot at media

Tony Abbott has vowed to accept the decision of his Liberal colleagues who dumped him as Prime minister.

"There will be no wrecking, no undermining, and no sniping," the outgoing Prime Minister told reporters in Canberra yesterday.

"This is a tough day, but when you join the game, you accept the rules."

But Abbott (pictured) did have a shot at the febrile media culture that rewarded treachery. And he had some advice for the media as well.

"Refuse to print self-serving claims that the person making them won't put his or her name to."

"Refuse to connive at dishonour by acting as the assassin's knife."

Abbott outlined the good record of his Government, citing the creation of 300,000 jobs, abolition of Labor's carbon and mining taxes, the signing of free-trade agreements with Japan, South Korea and China and the biggest infrastructure programme in Australia's history.

"We've responded to the threats of terror and we've deployed to the other side of the world to bring our loved ones home.

"The boats have stopped and with the boats stopped, we've been better able to display our compassion to refugees."

However, he admitted few people entirely measure up to expectations.

"Of course, the Government wasn't perfect," he said. "We have been a government of men and women, not a government of gods walking upon the earth."