It is obvious too in what is happening now in his federal electorate of Warringah, which has become a battleground for the massed Abbott haters drafted in from near and far, pitched against those who unerringly know he is the champion of their communities, aspirations and quality of life. In the middle ground between these two poles are the people who will decide the outcome in Warringah, and they have a big decision to make. Loading Do they give their vote to an untested candidate who claims independence while employing Labor operatives like Anthony Reed and profiting from the campaigning of GetUp, or do they keep faith with a man who has always been unabashedly “what you see is what you get”? Should those voters back Zali Steggall, what they will get is not some kind of benign faux Liberal. They will elect a member of a quasi-party that includes in its ranks Rob Oakeshott, Kerryn Phelps and Andrew Wilkie. Oakeshott, who was elected as a National before betraying his constituents to hand government to Labor; Phelps, who was elected to the City of Sydney Council as the running mate of hard-left lord mayor Clover Moore; Wilkie, who had to shrug off his membership of the Greens to get elected anywhere.

There’s a theme there, and Steggall epitomises it. This is not a candidate or a party of the centre. This is not a candidate or a party of principle, but of self-interest and opportunism. This is a candidate and a party that has sniffed a whiff of discontent on climate change policy in the genuine centre and is swooping to exploit that, with the covert help of Labor and its allies. Steggall was a fine and inspiring representative of her country as an athlete, but I don’t believe she is seeking election to public life because she has suddenly found a vocation. She’s part of an orchestrated plan to take advantage of the preferential voting system using non-Labor branded, left-wing candidates to unseat incumbents in previously unassailable Liberal seats. The writing of that plan was on the wall last October, when Phelps accidentally thanked the “people of Warringah” in her victory speech on the night of the Wentworth byelection. Independent candidate for Warringah has joined a bloc of independents who want climate changing leading critics to accuse them of forming a party. Credit:Louise Kennerley But what if the Warringah voters in the middle go with Tony? They’ll get, as they did in the last nine elections, a representative who has only ever aspired to civic responsibility. They’ll get a man who remains energetic, determined and authentic. They’ll re-elect the greatest political campaigner of his generation in Australia: the leader who dragged the Coalition from a no-hope position over the course of just eight months to a near-victory in 2010; and from opposition to a landslide win in 2013, making him only the fourth Liberal in history to achieve the feat.