Has he really damaged the Abbott government in any real way, or was it just sign of duchbaggery that gets quickly forgotten in the next news cycle?? I am curious, because the write of this article makes it seem that Abbotts days are limited by this ONE Obama speech!??
Tony Abbott is already unpopular in the Australian electorate, largely because of a very successful smear campaign by the left leaning media (which is most of it) deliberately supporting the lines (and, at time, lies) of the Labor and Green parties.
President Obama's speech reinforces all of that - and gives encouragement to these left wing people who think they are always correct and that their positions are unimpeachable, and will give them another boost.
It is nearly two years until the next election. There's plenty of time for Mr Abbott to get himself out of the electoral hole, he's in and also for the shine to come off Labor - but what Mr Obama has done has probably knocked Abbott about two months backwards. It's also diverting attention from Mr Abbott's diplomatic successes at this forum, which have been quite considerable really.
Labor and the Greens together all but control our Senate (technically the Greens are only part of the balance of power - but the others that hold the rest of the balance are very unpredictable) and they are using that power to block measures that are needed to fix our damaged economy (the damage being the result of Labor overspending mostly) and that further complicates things - if the conservatives can't fix the economy (even if it's because Labor and the Greens won't allow the necessary laws to pass) we lose our most potent political chip.
And President Obama has just made it even more likely that Labor and the Greens will continue to act the way they are, because he's given them political cover.