Tony Abbott: a weak leader with poor judgement

So, Tony Abbott is now vacillating on support for the "recognition of local government" referendum to be held at the next election:

On Monday, Mr Abbott said that while he supported the idea of allowing the federal government to directly fund local councils, he thought the government was rushing the referendum at the last minute. Mr Abbott added that the government should not be ''muddying the waters'' of the election with another vote.

''(The election) ought to be a referendum on Julia Gillard and the carbon tax rather than a referendum on local government,'' he said.

Why doesn't he just say "I'm more interesting in playing politics than seeing something useful gets done"?

His wavering comes after strong complaint from the old guard that he shouldn't support it:

This week former Liberal heavyweights Nick Minchin and Peter Reith spoke out against the idea. It is up to the Federal Government to propose the referendum but in-principle support from the Coalition makes it more likely that will happen.

and the "new guard" of dimwits as led by Andrew Bolt,  and his best friends forever in the IPA, and shared by such shining luminaries as Cory Bernardi. 

Sure, this issue has been raised before by Labor and failed, but this time there is solid, practical, court decision based reasons as to why the constitutional amendment is warranted.

Some in the Coalition (Barnaby Joyce, of all people!) recognize this, but more are interested in re-hashing the idea of it being about ideology and Labor power grabs. 

The IPA and their friends in the large, stupid, ideologically driven climate change skeptic faction of the Coalition (which, apart from Joyce, seem to compromise the bulk of the opposition to the referendum) should explain to me - in the current budgetary and economic conditions, what Labor Federal government is going to be interested in directly funding a huge amount of local government responsibilities just so they say "ha ha, we're in control"?

But back to Tony:  his new, barbed wire fence straddling attitude on this is just like his "it depends who I'm talking to"  approach to climate change.   His vacillation on an ETS, and final decision to take an opportunistic stand against it at the beck and call of Right wing talk back radio and Andrew Bolt is how he got the leadership.

The only policy which he has ever owned totally is one which virtually no one, except a hand full of feminist commentators, thinks makes economic sense (his overly generous parental leave plan.)

In short, the policies on which he chooses to dig his heals in are weak and ill founded; on those things which are practical and worthy he's still sniffing the wind as to what he should do.    (Another vacillation - the NBN lite plan.)

He is a crook leader who does not deserve to win government.