Abbott acknowledges women

Tony Abbott has been at pains to appeal to female voters, but finished up his first
week on the election trail playing with big boys' toys.
The opposition leader was in resource-rich Western Australia, where small and
mid-cap miners are about to renew their campaign against Labor's new tax on the
industry.
In Kalgoorlie, home to Australia's largest open pit gold mine, Mr Abbott visited a
mining services business, Hampton Transport Services, which employs 400 locals and
turns over around $65 million annually.
There, he clambered aboard a 110 tonne dump truck for a drive around the depot and
chatted to workers over a sausage sandwich.
"Even though the mining tax has been taken off commodities except for iron ore and
coal, the fact is that everyone in the mining industry here in Western Australia is
very anxious about the tax," he told reporters.
"It won't be Labor's mining tax that gets through, it'll be the Greens' mining tax
because the Greens will hold the balance of power in the Senate."
He said it was a thrill to ride in the giant Caterpillar.
"There's got to be something good about democracy if it means that I can get behind
the wheel of a really big truck," he joked.
It was an unusual turn to the day, given he had spent the morning stressing his
empathy with women.
Opening the Western Australian Liberal Party Conference in Perth, Mr Abbott was
joined by his wife Margaret for the first time on the campaign trail.
He began his speech to party faithful by acknowledging the women in his life.
"My life is full of strong women," he said, referring to Margaret as an
"independently-minded career woman", his daughters as "three powerful women", his
female chief of staff and his press secretary, and Liberal deputy Julie Bishop as
"the strongest woman of them all".
It was also the first time Ms Bishop had joined Mr Abbott on the campaign.
It came as a Fairfax-Nielsen poll showed Prime Minister Julia Gillard had a 28-point
lead as preferred leader among women, confirming the Liberal leader still has a
problem appealing to female voters.
But he told reporters the timing of both women joining the campaign was coincidental.
"Margie my wife is a busy professional woman," Mr Abbott said.
"She just can't up sticks and leave just because ... an election campaign has been
called.
"This was the earliest she could come on the campaign trail and I am so thrilled to
have her."
Mr Abbott announced a $50 million plan to reinstate a Howard government crime
prevention plan that includes the installation of closed circuit television cameras.
He told the conference the election was the "supreme challenge" of his life but was
winnable.
The Liberals in Western Australia had won a state election they weren't expected to
win, and contributed to the abandonment of the original resources tax, which
contributed to the downfall of Kevin Rudd, he said.
"We are not expected to win this election but we can," he said.