On Monday the Australian papers were filled with rather unsettling pictures of Tony Abbott, then just a Liberal frontbench MP, wading out of the surf in “budgie smuggler” trunks and the red-and-gold cap of his surf lifesaving club.
Twenty-four hours later he was the new leader of the opposition party — a party that had taken an even more disturbing lurch to the right.
Australians have become used to seeing pictures of Mr Abbott plastered over newspapers and television semi-clothed in various postures to show off his obvious fitness. But despite the beefcake pictures the new leader of the Liberal Party is an unabashed conservative whose values are far closer to the former Prime Minister John Howard than to Malcolm Turnbull, the liberal Liberal he ousted yesterday.
Pugnacious and at times divisive, he is a deeply committed Catholic, ardent monarchist and anti-abortionist who has fought passionately against a number of progressive moves from the introduction of same-sex marriages to embryonic stem-cell research.
His nickname, the “Mad Monk”, comes from an early flirtation with the priesthood but it has stuck, partly because of his maverick nature, which has been particularly highlighted in recent months during the climate change debate.
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The man who now vows to fight Kevin Rudd’s emissions trading scheme (ETS) was once an apparently fervent supporter — he has already changed his stance on the measure three times. He dismissed climate change as “crap” in an interview with the BBC but insisted yesterday that he was not a climate sceptic and believes that humans have contributed to global warming.
Born in London in 1957, Mr Abbott moved to Australia with his parents as a child but returned as an Australian Rhodes scholar to the University of Oxford, where he won a Blue for boxing. Despite his maverick nature, blunt language and undiplomatic style, he is respected as a leading party intellectual and political heavyweight. However, some analysts believe that his elevation will turn the Liberals into an unelectable fringe party. He might have gained the support of hardline Liberal rebels on the ETS but his stance on many issues is repellent to a great number of voters. And his position on climate change might well come back to haunt him.
Australia is at the start of a long, hot summer, and has already had days of “catastrophic” fire danger, the highest fire threat rating. With the memory of February’s Black Saturday still scorched into memories, Australians have been warned to expect a particularly severe bushfire season, which environmentalists are citing as further proof of global warming.
A repeat of Black Saturday, and he is likely to see much of his support going up in flames.