Abbott was Australia’s best opposition leader. But his return to the spotlight could overshadow the new guy

Last Friday, at a bit after 3pm, former Liberal leader and prime minister Tony Abbott was elected unopposed as the party’s federal president.

The role is typically a behind-the-scenes position that requires someone who can gently persuade, occasionally twist an arm and generally get things done with a minimum of fuss.

In other words, it’s the completely opposite approach to Abbott’s hard-charging, take-no-prisoners style, which was, and is, characterised by a crusading fervour and an unshakeable conviction in the righteousness of his causes.

Taylor has long been a supporter of Abbott, who has for years been one of his political mentors, and backed the former prime minister over former foreign minister Alexander Downer to take the party presidency.

Downer, himself now a party vice president, declared that his colleagues in the parliament would need to become “media tarts” over the next couple of years to get in front of the Australian people and persuade them that the current Labor government needs to be voted out of office.

He didn’t have Abbott in mind. Indeed, the former prime minister, after a stirring five-minute address on Friday afternoon that reminded everyone of his considerable rhetorical skills, declined interviews about his new role.

But being Liberal Party president is the most frontline political job Abbott has held since losing the seat of Warringah to independent Zali Steggall in 2019.

And just three days on from his election as president, Abbott was unable to resist the lure of the spotlight on Monday morning.

In quick succession, Abbott appeared on Nine’s Today show, ABC’s Radio National breakfast program and Sky News. He also sent out a fundraising email to members.

During those TV spots, he sounded as polished and focused as he did more than a decade ago when campaigning against the Gillard government’s carbon and mining taxes.

Abbott sounded like an alternative opposition leader – and, arguably, a more polished and persuasive one than Taylor.

He is unable to operate with anything other than laser-like focus, like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the original Terminator movie, and he risks overshadowing his less experienced and less polished successor.

Abbott told the ABC’s Sally Sara that he “didn’t expect to be in the media every day” but that his election as president could convince sceptical voters (ie, those people who have deserted the opposition for One Nation) that the Coalition was fair dinkum about scrapping Labor’s new taxes, ending so-called mass migration and more.

Abbott’s selection as party president is the politica