Congratulations Mr Abbott, Liberal Party Leader

Everyone was expecting a coronation for Joe Hockey, but instead Tony Abbott has emerged as the surprise winner of the Liberal leadership spill, ensuring the Government's climate plan will be blocked.

Tony Abbott is Liberal leader
TONY Abbott has beaten Malcolm Turnbull by just one vote to take over the Liberal party.

Abbott wins toughest job in town
Piers Akerman
Tony Abbott has confounded the Canberra pundits with his defeat of Malcolm Turnbull for the Liberal Party and Opposition leadership.
Joe Hockey, the favoured candidate was knocked out in the first round when the Liberals voted Abbott (35), Turnbull (26) and Hockey (23).
Hockey showed himself to be both reluctant to step up to the challenge and unable to formulate a clear policy on the flawed ETS.
Abbott and Turnbull stood for something, unlike Hockey who had nothing coherent to offer. Hockey has more to offer women’s television than politics.
That Abbott then defeated Turnbull shows that he has some major hurdles to clear before he can front a united party. A tough job but he matured in politics and may be able to rise to this challenge.
During his press conference, Abbott said he’s not frightened of fighting an election on the ETS and he pointed out it is just a giant new tax designed to be run by a vast new bureaucracy.
He has started his leadership by taking the fight to the Rudd government, exposing its lies, attacking its economic strategy. He pointed out that the Rudd government has already wasted more money than the Whitlam government - which was hitherto the most profligate in Australian history.
He hasn’t promised an election victory but he has promised to make the election a real contest. - I am very happy by the result. Mr Abbott has shown sound judgement which was starkly illustrated by the secret ballot immediately following his election to leader. I note the ABC commentator claimed that it wasn't a legitimate majority because of an informal vote (The spruiker gave the example of Mr Gortyn saying he would 'Take that as a no'). I also note an ABC commentator claimed that Lindsay Tanner prophesied this result. Then an ABC commentator asked if Mr Abbott would be like Mr Latham. Clearly the ABC don't get it, but their analysis has been consistently wrong so far, and it would spoil things for that to change.
Mr Abbott does not say everything I believe. He claims that his comment that Climate Change is crap was hyperbolic .. I feel the Climate Change debate is based on a hoax. But we agree the government should not pass the ETS bill right now. We agree the next election can be fought on this issue.
I respected Mr Turnbull and Mr Hockey, but I can not support an ETS. - ed.

IT’S ABBOTT
Tim Blair
Just:

Tony Abbott has won the Liberal Party federal leadership by one vote, replacing Malcolm Turnbull as leader.

Hit the road, ETS.

UPDATE. Or maybe not:

While Mr Abbott has pledged to deliver an anti-ETS policy as a condition of his leadership, up to eight Liberal MPs are threatening to cross the floor and vote with Labor.

Kevin Rudd only needs seven Liberal MPs to vote for an ETS in the Senate and it will become law.

Turnbull press conference in a few minutes. Stand by for mentions of children, grandchildren, planet etc.

UPDATE II. Turnbull faces the press. Not going to resign from Parliament. Undecided about next election, however. Won’t serve on front bench. Thanks colleagues who stuck with him in leadership ballot and “thousands of Australians” who’ve supported “the principled stand I’ve taken”. Disappointed about “dramatic change of policy” re ETS. Says “I’ve always had the courage of my convictions”.

UPDATE III. Abbott press conference. Tough day for some of his colleagues. Humbled and daunted by what’s ahead; also exhilarated. Wounds need to be healed. Will aim to be a “consultative and collegial” leader. Pays tribute to Turnbull: “We’ve mostly been friends.”

And now the important bit:

On the ETS: it’s an “energy taxation scheme.” The ETS is “a $120 billion tax on the Australian public, and that is just for starters.” Says “we can’t just wave it through the Parliament – it would be grossly irresponsible”.

Says that a secret ballot has “approved this course of action.” Will oppose ETS in the Senate this week. Oppositions are “not there to get legislation through.” Says he is not frightened of an election on ETS. Says this three times.

Defines ETS as a “great big tax to create a great big slush fund to finance bureaucracy” and characterises taxpayer waste under the Rudd government as “worse than Whitlam.” On broadband strategy: “Not even Gough Whitlam would be as crazy as that.” Promises to be “an alternative, not an echo.”

Abbott wins
Andrew Bolt
Tony Abbott wins - the only Liberal contender of the three that opposed Kevin Rudd’s great green tax. But the win over Turnbull was just 42 to 41, with Fran Bailey absent.

Abbott wins also because Turnbull split the vote. In the first round ballot, Hockey was knocked out, no doubt robbed of votes by support for Turnbull. But Abbott also wins because Hockey could not stand for anything.

It’s the best the Liberals could hope for in terms of candidate, perhaps. But the worst in the margin of the win.

UPDATE

If Sky News is the measure of the collective mood of the press gallery, and it usually is, the media assassination of Abbott now begins. Hockey was the gallery’s man.

UPDATE 2

This is a win for policy above all - a policy of delaying a vote for Rudd’s great green tax. But will enough hard-line Liberal warmists now defy Abbott in the Senate and give Labor its tax? I would hope and expect not, but who can predict anything these days? Sky News reports that the partyroom voted to delay the tax, or vote it down if they cannot delay it.

UPDATE 3

Another big winner is Julie Bishop, who remains deputy leader. Good for Abbott, because she is a delayer as well.

UPDATE 4

The first round votes went Abbott 35, Turnbull 26 and Hockey 23. Turnbull killed Hockey, and with it the passing of Rudd’s great green tax.

UPDATE 5

Sceptic Kevin Andrews says Kevin Rudd will not dare an early election over his great green tax, which the Liberals will now finally start attacking with an “effective” argument. The tax, not the need to do “something” about “climate change”, will be attacked. That might be all that Abbott dares do, given the split in the party, but it’s still less than what is needed.

UPDATE 6

And against everything that so many in the press gallery insisted - here is the Liberal verdict in a secret ballot on whether to back or defer Rudd’s great green tax. Defer 55, back 29. The fightback has at last begun.

UPDATE 7

Turnbull speaks. Wishes Abbott well. Won’t resign from Parliament. Will consider if he’ll run again at the next election. Won’t serve on the front bench. Won’t comment when asked if he’d run again as leader one day.

Can’t help himself though: he still insists the party must have a “credible policy on climate change”, by which be means his own policy. (Most journalist there will, sadly, agree with him.) Diminishes the meaning of the vote against backing Rudd’s tax, saying it was “inevitable” that many in the party would have decided to back the policy of the man they’d just made leader. On the man goes, saying Abbott’s position will put lots of jobs at risk. (Did Lachlan Harris write his lines?)

UPDATE 8

One Liberal just wrote “No” on their ballot paper. Now let’s see if the Liberal Left can find the seven Senators that Rudd needs to cross the floor and pass his green tax.

UPDATE 9

Hockey stays as shadow treasurer.

UPDATE 10

Abbott speaks. He will be a “consultative and collegial” leader. He is gracious to Turnbull, as Turnbull was not to him. “Malcolm has shone in adversity.”

Already the lines are potent - real fighting words from the Liberals at last: Rudd’s great green tax “is really an energy taxation scheme.” In fact, it is “a $120 billion tax on the Australian public, and that is just for starters.” Power prices will go up, for instance. “We just can’t wave that through the Parliament.”

To the public, Rudd’s scheme is “a great big tax to create a great big slush fund… run by a giant bureaucracy”. Already Rudd has overseen “a waste of money ... worse than Whitlam”.

(See how well the lines come together at last? Good God, why did it take the Liberals two years to nut out lines so clear and so informed by good sense? Does Rudd really want to call that early election now, fighting for a great green tax on everything?)

“I cannot promise victory ... but I can promise a contest.”

Right now the Liberals look like getting off the floor and standing at last for their values. They will fight under Abbott. They may not have the votes yet, but at last they have their pride.

The first media question is by a journalist seemingly astonished that the Liberals can defy the public mood on the emissions scheme. Let’s see where that mood is when the Liberals have finished arguing.

UPDATE 11

Abbott’s first mistake: to give deputy Julie Bishop a cuddle during the press conference and call her a “loyal girl”.

And already he’s facing that debate he’s still not daring to have. A journalist asks: Why did he say at a Liberal branch meeting of heated members that climate change is “crap”?

Answer: “It was a bit of hyperbole. It is not my considered position.... climate change is real.” Humans were contributing, he said, and there was an argument about how much. Which is essentially saying nothing, I guess, except to the ignorant.

And again, Rudd’s emissions scheme is “a great big tax”. Which it is, and which needs to be said again and again.