Tony Abbott's gaffes and missteps: a recent history

The comments of Bolt and Faine are particularly instructive, as is the fact that many have concluded that Abbott's leadership cannot last. By March, the stage had been reached at which his every pronouncement seemed to be scrutinised nationally for the inevitable, expected gaffe it would contain. A certain momentum had developed, of a kind that can become self-perpetuating and lead to faith in leaders being lost.

Can Abbott turn matters around and survive? Yes, perhaps: the apparent re-appraisal in late March of the seriousness of the "debt and deficit disaster" left by Labor, and the indications that the next budget will be different from last year's one, suggest so. May's budget will be, in Abbott's own words, "above all, fair", suggesting it will not be harsh. This will be good for Abbott's popularity and the government politically, but if it also means a retreat from putting the budgetary situation to rights there will be the negative of departing from the narrative of the past eighteen months. Any inconsistency will bring risk.

And there have been no obvious gaffes and missteps for the last three weeks, which means that what happened between Australia Day and mid-March will have receded a little from the collective consciousness. Concerns about Abbott's pronouncements have not been reinforced, and the government has recovered somewhat in the polls.

Nevertheless the Prime Minister has shown himself to be accident-prone both in utterances and decisions. His errors have had a cumulative effect. Any more over the next few months could reactivate talk of a leadership spill and confirm that the Liberals, like Labor, can consider dumping a leader. And that, as Abbott rightly says, would play disastrously in the community.

Nobody wants a government beset by leadership strife. But equally nobody wants a prime minister who stumbles frequently in word and deed, begins to look foolish and loses respect both at home and abroad. It never happened with Menzies, Fraser or Howard.