Tony Abbott’s chief of staff Peta Credlin is still being blamed for his demise as prime minister.
In Niki Savva’s new book Road to Ruin: How Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin destroyed their own government, Credlin is reported to have micro-managed Abbott’s office and kept MPs and senators out of the loop.
Meanwhile, the abuse she lobbed at Abbott could be so loud that others could hear her swearing down the line when Abbott was speaking with her on the phone.
Her treatment of Abbott’s wife Margie was particularly disturbing, according to sources quoted in the book. She’s said to have done everything from removing Margie from the guest list of an election victory party, to ordering staff not to shop for family meals.
Savva’s book, published today, sounds like a riveting read and I look forward to getting my own copy. It’s long been clear that the relationship between Abbott and his number one advisor was dysfunctional — and obvious at the time that the advice he was getting was seriously misguided.
But let’s remember once again — as we did last year following calls from Rupert Murdoch that if Abbott didn’t remove Credlin himself then Credlin should do the ‘patriotic thing and resign‘ — the decisions and behaviours Abbott exhibited that led to his fall from the top job can only be blamed on one person: Tony Abbott.
As Savva tells The New Daily today, about what Abbott made of Credlin’s control of his office: “He was either oblivious to this or complicit in it … He either simply tolerated it or he incited it.”
No matter which it was, he failed to act accordingly.
A leader is only as good as the team he or she can establish in order to actually lead. And he or she’s only held ‘hostage’ to such a team if they have no authority to remove the problem areas.
Abbott was PM. It’s pretty clear he had enough authority to sort out his own team.
Why he didn’t, and the consequences of such inaction, are now a matter for the history books.