Gerard Henderson, policy skills Abbott, and never you mind about the great big new tax, it's an investment in human capital ...

(Above: Tony Abbott on Lateline, wearing his purple ribbon for National Andrew Bolt is a Dickhead day a tad early, as that great celebration doesn't happen until June 3rd this year).

While Chairman Rudd is inclined to be dull, and amazingly awkward in public - contrast his style and manner to Bob Hawke's 'maaaaate' routine, or Paul Keating's ability to imitate a cut-throat razor - Tony Abbott has a remarkable capacity for chutzpah.

Take his constant, incessant, relentless, non-stop ongoing talk about Labor's sundry and various great big taxes - a simple minded phrase repeated with singular relentless monotony, as if the electorate was in kindergarten - and then out of the other side of the mouth rolls a very minor, small, impost on big business which will be great for families, women, the nation and the economy.

Whatever it is, it isn't a tax - perhaps a levy, or best of all an investment in human capital. And poor old Barners, lost in the floods, says he wasn't consulted.

It provides a wonderful introduction to good old Gerard Henderson rabbiting on about how Tony Abbott proves he really has people skills, illustrated with an still from Abbott at the International Women's Day event, whereat he discovered he was a feminist willing to take to task big business with his great big new tax in the cause of paid maternity leave.

Henderson is a fine old state of euphoria, remarkable for one so staid. There's the polls, and the polls, and Abbott competitive, and Abbott sound on the economy, and the dud batts, and Barack Obama, and Niki Savvas's book about working for Costello and Howard and Laurie Oakes launching it, and ignoring the central message, which is of course that the press gallery is full of rabid lefties, and Abbott's social conservatism in the suburbs and the bush a huge advantage, and Rudd needs to rally, and then there's industrial relations, and the junking of workplace agreements, the core of screwing workers (or if you will at the core of labour market flexibility), and a mounting sense of rampant hope, and Rudd in retreat, and people skills Abbott triumphant:

It's unclear how the year will work out. But Rudd's decision to cancel an important trip to the US indicates he acknowledges Abbott really does have some people skills.

Yes, Rudd on the run and Abbott ascendent, but what about his policy skills? A more half assed, half cocked kind of policy in relation to paid maternity leave couldn't be managed. Except for its half assed launch into the body politic.

Naturally big business is in an uproar, but it seems the party room was more than mildly surprised (MPs express concern over better deal for working mums under Abbott plan).

Abbott's attempt to sell his change of heart on Lateline (Parental leave plan leaves business fuming) came across as disingenuous and dissembling (Abbot defends 'fair' parental leave plan).

Of course it fits right into the game plan established by his master. John Howard was always shameless about buying votes, distorting the market place and the taxation system to send the right kind of message to swinging voters in marginal seats. For all the talk of him being a dry, he never minded splashing about in the pork barrel when it suited him.

No doubt Abbott is calculating that the pork barrel will buy a few female votes, alienate big business for the moment but give them time to swing back into line, and after much consultation and dissembling, he then has room to turn the newly announced plan into a non-core policy.

I wonder if 'people skills' includes the art of political hypocrisy? All politicians practise the skill, but this venture from Abbott is surely as cynical and inauthentic ploy as we've seen in recent times.

Still I guess for the next couple of weeks we can look forward to Abbott being given a right royal bollocking by all the dries and the commentariat columnists. Fuming about such an obvious, naked attempt to buy votes, by doing over big business in best leftie style.

You know, how they were agin the batt scheme (like I was agin it, batting away hustlers, snake oil salesmen and insulation spruikers like the blowflies they were), and now damn it, how they're agin that socialist Abbott.

In your dreams ...

Meanwhile, those inclined to nostalgia might care to revisit All aboard the 'People Skills' Wild ride scribbled by Annabel Crabb back in December last year. More insights than cheerleader Henderson, who is sounding more and more like Thomas Keneally cheering on the Sea Eagles, and as a bonus, a lot shorter.

(Below: a people skills montage put together by those damn lefties at the ABC).