An Appreciation Of The Brief But Spectacular Tenure Of Eric Abetz

You never like to see a man cut down in his prime. Especially someone who’s only just received long overdue recognition. And so it was last week with the untimely demise of Tasmanian hard right warrior, Senator Eric Abetz.

Swatted straight from cabinet all the way to the backbench by new Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull, Abetz had slaved away for years in the backwater of the Tasmanian Liberal party before finally achieving his life’s dream. Not being Minister for Employment and Government Leader in the Senate. No no, they were just titles. Rather it was the vantage point they offered: the opportunity to be the chief spear carrier for the Christian hard right. With Tony Abbott as Prime Minster, Abetz was given free rein to fulfil his life mission and lead a full-on assault on modernity.

His was a brief but spectacular tenure.

In order to pay homage to this fallen warrior, here’s some of the good Senator’s greatest hits:

August 2014: “There Is A Link Between Abortion And Breast Cancer”

There was the time he appeared on prime time national television to solemnly warn that abortion can lead to breast cancer, despite this theory being well and truly debunked by decades of evidence.

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July 2015: Marriage Equality Is “The Latest Fad”

He took up the cudgels against gay marriage labelling it a fad that Australia shouldn’t follow because none of our Asian neighbours had done so.

When it was pointed out that these same Asian nations hadn’t even legalised homosexuality let alone gay marriage, he deftly changed tack, telling startled colleagues in a party room debate that the unmarried gay fashion designers Dolce and Gabbana were an example of why it wasn’t necessary.

He then went about admonishing everyone — from the U.S Supreme Court to the Hobart City Council — who thought it was.

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September 2015: “Christian [Refugees] Should Be Prioritised”

Keen to emphasise Australia’s supposed Judeo-Christina heritage, he championed Abbott’s $250 million school chaplain program, and urged that only Christian refugees be resettled here from the crisis in Syria.

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September 2006: Weeds Pose A More Serious Challenge To The Earth Than Climate Change

And let’s not forget that standard hard-right denial of man-made climate change; the Senator has claimed that bracken and blackberries posed a greater threat to the environment than the warming of the earth’s atmosphere. From 2006: “There is no doubt that weeds pose … a challenge much clearer, more present and possibly more serious than the unclear challenge which climate change may or may not pose to our biodiversity in 100 years’ time.”

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Each of these outbursts were met with varying degrees of WTF-ness by the general public, and achieved the remarkable feat of making Senator Cory Bernardi appear almost sensible by comparison — but no one could deny that Sen Abetz was enjoying himself, and powered by an unshakable sense of certainty. Stuff facts, evidence, the 21st Century, the enlightenment; Abetz was right because his moral and ideological beliefs told him so.

This approach also prevailed on the rare occasions he did what is normally expected of cabinet ministers, and actually advocated Government policy. This is tricky territory for ideological warriors as those pesky facts and figures tend to get in the way, but undeterred, Eric charged in anyway.

As Employment Minister, he famously warned Australia was at risk of wage explosion. This came as a surprise, especially to economists who pointed out that wages were in fact struggling to keep up with inflation rather than running out of control. Again, Abetz bravely stood his ground, going out of his way to reduce the pay of the cleaners at Parliament House just in case a wage explosion suddenly appeared.

He was also at the forefront of the Abbott Government’s disastrous first Budget, where he was given carriage of changes to unemployment benefits that would’ve seen job seekers wait six months before they could access the dole. This was at a time when the Senator’s home state was being engulfed by a crisis of youth unemployment. When pressed on how the young unemployed would cope under such a draconian policy, the Senator helpfully advised them to do what he did as a youngster and pick fruit. He is from Tasmania after all.

It was a sales pitch which failed to convince the Senate crossbench or anyone else for that matter and the policy was later dumped.

Now Eric himself has been dumped and is cooling his jets on the backbench where, among other things, he has taken up letter-writing. While he’s assured his many supporters that he’ll remain in the Senate, his political career is essentially over. His legacy will soon be assessed.

This shouldn’t take very long.

Because apart from the LOLs provided by the sort of  ideological frolics mentioned above, Abetz has precious little else to show for more than two decades of culture war combat in the Senate.

This in itself isn’t unusual. The red benches of the Upper House feature plenty of party hacks and ex-union officials who prefer political parlour games to policy achievement. And ideology is no bad thing; all politicians are inspired to some extent by an overarching philosophy.

But Senator Abetz is a special case.

Unlike Senators from larger states, Abetz has been able turn the small confines of the Tasmanian Liberal Party into his own personal fiefdom, controlling it for over 20 years. During most of this period he has been the Coalition’s senior Tasmanian MP, serving in the outer ministry under John Howard and in Cabinet under Tony Abbott.

With Tasmania an impoverished state with deep seated social and economic problems and a heavy reliance on Commonwealth funding, Abetz had the unique opportunity to make a lasting difference. He didn’t take it.

The combative, deeply ideological and occasionally bizarre politics that have recently made him the butt of jokes across Australia are well known to Tasmanians.

But they’re not laughing.

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Cade Lucas is a teacher, writer, broadcaster and Tasmanian who’s been published in The Age, Crikey, and The Kings Tribune.

Feature image by Graham Denhold for Getty.