So the polls are showing that Labor is an at all time low and if an election was held tomorrow, we would have a Liberal Coalition government in Canberra and Tony Abbott would be our prime minister.

I wonder if the people being surveyed by the companies conducting these polls have actually thought of what having Tony Abbott as the leader of this country on the national and international stage might look like. Since there is a very black void in any policy coming out of Abbott, with the exception of repealing the Carbon Tax, we can only make assumptions about his potential leadership on what he has already said and done.

It’s not hard since Abbott has been vocal on any number of things. He has said it’s ‘folly’ to expect that women will achieve equal representation as men in a large number of areas because our abilities and interests differ due to physiological reasons. He has declared that as a Catholic he can’t be trusted to make an objective decision so our standing as a secular state might take a beating and there is every possibility that George Pell will end up as our Governor General.

What might follow is that RU486 would be impossible to access, chemists would refuse to sell the pill, the legal right to abortion will be under threat since he has said that women who choose this are ‘taking the easy option.’

Tobacco companies would cheer and put his face on their packets as gratitude and recognition for his support in stopping any health measures designed to curb cigarette smoking. A renewal of vows with mother England is on the books since he has gushingly confessed that loving the monarchy is like ‘loving your parents.’ His response to indigenous poverty is that there may not be great jobs for Aboriginal people, but whatever it is they just have to do it – even it is picking up rubbish.

According the Four Degree Conference held in Melbourne last week, where internationally renowned scientists talked about the impact of climate change it is likely that Australia’s population health will face many more heatwaves and weather disasters if nothing is done. There will be food shortages, malnutrition, increases in many infectious diseases (including epidemic outbreaks), widespread mental depression, anxiety and rural misery, and tensions and conflicts over resource shortages, population displacement and refugee flows.

This might be a reality under Abbott’s leadership because in opposition to the scientific community of the world, Tony Abbott has announced that climate change is absolute crap. Workers would have to put up with maltreatment from bosses because Abbott has said that it’s better to have a bad boss than no boss at all: “If we’re honest, most of us would accept that a bad boss is a little bit like a bad father or a bad husband – notwithstanding all of his faults, you find that he tends to do more good than harm. He might be a bad boss but at least he’s employing someone while he is in fact a boss.”

All of this is on the public record and in the past we have laughed and shaken our heads at the comments of a man clearly stuck in another bygone era where some of us had more rights than others and if we didn’t, we just had to accept our lot. It’s somewhat reminiscent of the attitude of the Ancien Regime before the French Revolution. But I find it hard to laugh at the idea that Australia might be led by a man of such vapid intellectual ability in the 21st century when we will need forward thinking and planning to maintain and improve our well being and quality of life in the face of enormous challenges.

So to all those people complaining about the Carbon Tax and saying they’d prefer Abbott as Prime Minister, I can only paraphrase Eminem: “Be careful what you wish for, Cause you might just get it and if you get it, then you might not know what to do with it, Cause it might just come back on you ten fold.”