Tony Abbott realises the media's worst nightmare showing yet again how driven they are by their own propaganda

Tony Abbott's defeat of Malcolm Turnbull for the leadership of the Liberal Party came as a surprise to most people, and a shock to those trapped inside the media asylum. Certainly, it was a surprise to me. But to say it was a shock to the media and the dominant political class (there is little distinction here) is to grossly understate their bemusement. I felt I could hear the skyrocketing levels of anxiety in my little office down here in Melbourne.

It is a tribute to the power of the media that their sneering contempt for Abbott and their writing him off as a right-wing extremist convinced most people that he was regarded as unelectable both in and outside the party room. Even someone so cynical about the media as me was fooled into accepting the tales of the widespread enmity towards him in the electorate. This is despite Tony Abbott's representing my views more than any other politician in Canberra. Anyone who reads my scribblings and is familiar with Abbott's moral and political vision would know that. He is my first choice as prime minister. Nevertheless, I am never blind to the antagonism someone like Abbott (and me) provokes among Australia's dominant class, and the flow-on propaganda effect in the community.

It should be another lesson to the general community - in particular those who do not cut muster with the dominant class so beautifully represented by Melbourne's feminist Age - how off-line the leftist/PC media often are with their commentary. There was Nine's contemptible Laurie Oakes mouthing off as usual against Abbott calling him 'Captain Catholic' and the 'mad monk' and repeating again and again that Abbott was unelectable. He merely represented the media's view of Abbott.

He also represented the view that Malcolm Turnbull had alienated himself so much from his Liberal Party colleagues that he would be unceremoniously bounced out of the party and down the front lawns of Parliament House. The personable Joe Hockey was the media's man. Has that bunch of self-absorbed political clowns they call the Canberra Press Gallery ever got it so wrong?

I was sure that many Liberal members would have come to the same conclusions as me about Turnbull's qualities as a person and leader. If he lost, I thought, it would be narrowly - as happened. In that case, Joe Hockey would be elected leader. As I hinted in my previous comment, that would have placed Hockey in an untenable position. Either look like a flip-flopping hypocrite and go with the Abbott and Michin mutiny, or appear weak by allowing a conscience vote. In the event, he lost and was drawn back from the political abyss. He covered himself well with the sincere declaration later that he would not display the abject hypocrisy some expected of him.

It was not only on the question of who would be elected leader of the Liberal Party that the media hacks got it so absurdly wrong. It was also the indictable misrepresentation of Abbott's real motivations for challenging Turnbull and his actual position on climate change and the ETS legislation. I thought he gave an excellent speech following his election as leader, showing himself strong, determined and as a person of conviction. His well articulated message was here I am, this is what I think, so do your worst.

Whereas the media represented him as a heretical 'climate denier' and this was his motivation in challenging the ETS legislation, Abbott made it crystal clear that the issue was importantly an economic one - an unfair unsustainable tax burden - and that though acknowledging there was climate change he challenged the explanation and the way of dealing with it. This is a little different from simply being an ignorant climate change sceptic, as his frantic opponents in the media and Labor Party paint him. The strident cries of 'climate change denier' in the face of a growing group of respected scientists challenging the orthodoxy has the sound of religious fanaticism.

Tony Abbott has made a good start despite his opponents' immediate appeal to anti-Catholic prejudice and right-wing extremism. Right-wing extremism? The extremism is the way today's forgotten people, little different from Menzies' forgotten people sixty years ago, think about moral and political issues. Nevertheless, I think the scenario I sketched in the previous comment still exists, though recalibrated. Tony Abbott should not forget those two key guiding principles of Burkean conservatism: expedience and prudence. One would be foolish to underestimate the desire of people to have the environment cleaned up without any reference to scientific theories or economic policy they don't understand.

As for Malcolm Turnbull, he should not at all contemplate leaving parliament. He remains a whisker away from the leadership - and the office of prime minister. He is the alternative if Abbott's position - my preferred position - fails. I would like to see him learn a little more about conservative thought. He has shown he is half-way there. I would recommend reading Noel O'Sullivan's first chapter Conservative Ideology: A Philosophy of Imperfection in his book Conservatism, and Michael Oakeshott's essay Rationalism in Politics. Two characteristics separate the conservative from the fantasising progressive/liberal: a critique of abstract theory (rationalism) and centring social and moral judgment in concrete circumstances.

Comment: gerard@gerardcharleswilson.com