“Authority to Abbott was hierarchical. Those at the top exercised power and those at the bottom deferred. As we have seen, Abbott was, to his great cost, largely uninterested in the views of those beneath him. His dismissal of subordinates was partly because as he made his way through Australia’s great institutions, he tended to look to leaders for support rather than peers. This was crucial to understanding the way Abbott learned about politics, and why he ended up being a failed prime minister.”
