Tony Abbott has always been underappreciated in Canberra political reporting. When he lost, first, the leadership and, then, his seat, no-one in the gallery was particularly surprised. Last October, Chris Wallace dismissed him in The Saturday Paper as one of the party’s mad uncles — one of those “former senior politicians who can’t resist getting involved in political business that is no longer theirs”. But Abbott has become something of a rock star in the Liberal Party base.