Abbott defends frontbench reshuffle

A day after recalling three of John Howard's key lieutenants to the coalition
frontbench, Tony Abbott has declared he also wants to recruit the former prime
minister's blue-collar battlers to form an "Abbott's Army".

The new opposition leader believes the coalition's rejection of Labor's emissions
trading scheme (ETS) will help win over swinging working- and middle-class voters.
"Obviously, if you are going to win the election you have got to secure the people
who regard themselves as rusted on coalition voters and then you have got to reach
out to the middle ground," Mr Abbott told Fairfax Radio on Wednesday.
"And `Howard's Battlers', to use that phrase, were basically working people who
respected John Howard because he thought that, in his own way, he was one of them.
"We can reach out and claim those same people ... maybe this could become Abbott's
Army."
Mr Abbott said in the weekend by-elections in Bradfield and Higgins there were big
swings to the Liberals in "blue collar" areas.
"I have a feeling this emissions tax is really going to bring them (Labor) unstuck,"
he said.
But if Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was worried about losing the battlers who deserted
Mr Howard in 2007, he wasn't showing it on Wednesday.
Working families were concerned about a return of the Work Choices industrial
relations regime under the coalition, Mr Rudd told reporters.
"Working families want decent, fair laws for their workplace.
"What Mr Abbott, the current leader of the Liberal Party, has done is unleash the
most hardline, right-wing people in the country on the workplace laws for the
future."
Mr Rudd said the opposition's new workplace relations spokesman, Eric Abetz,
believed penalty rates were excessive and irrelevant, and leave loading was
outrageous, illogical, and economically debilitating.
Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard was singing from the same song sheet.
The coalition wanted to bring back individual employment agreements and strip away
unfair dismissal remedies, she said.
"That's Work Choices back lock, stock and barrel."
Mr Abbott was asked on talkback radio if he'd bring back Work Choices if elected
prime minister.
He started his answer well: "The short answer is no, I wouldn't".
However, his lengthier explanation was less clear cut: "But I can't promise you that
I wouldn't want to make a few changes to laws that Kevin Rudd has brought in".
Mr Abbott also referred to the Howard years as a "lost golden age".
"As the Howard government recedes into history it will seem more and more a lost
golden age," he said when talking of his political influences.
"People appreciate that it was economically unprecedented and I think it was also a
time when Australians got their self confidence back."