Is Tony Abbott the most incompetent leader of any industrialised democracy? This US think tank says yes.

We were all thinking it, but this US think tank dared to ask the question: “Is Tony Abbott the most incompetent leader of any industrialised democracy?”

Yesterday’s “holocaust of jobs” gaffe was just the latest in a long line of verbal missteps by Prime Minister Tony Abbott. But does having your foot seemingly permanently planted in your mouth make you an incompetent politician? Not necessarily.

Read more: Did Tony Abbott just describe job losses as a ‘holocaust’. Really?

It does make you wonder though, is Tony Abbott an incompetent Prime Minister? If this leading US think tank is to be believed, absolutely. He might even be the worst leader in any industrialised democracy. Just saying.

The post appeared on the Council on Foreign Relations website last week — prior to Monday’s unsuccessful spill motion — and poses one big question: “Is Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott the most incompetent leader of any industrialized democracy?”

The answer? A resounding “yes”.

“Abbott has proven so incapable of clear policy thinking, so unwilling to consult with even his own ministers and advisers, and so poor at communicating that he has to go,” writes senior fellow Joshua Kurlantzick, a US specialist in south-east Asian politics.

“Abbott’s policies have been all over the map, and the lack of coherence has often made the prime minister seem ill-informed and incapable of understanding complex policy issues.”

Ouch.

Kurlantzick goes on to describe Abbott and both “ill-informed” and flat-out “incapable of understanding complex policy issues.”

OPINION: Minister, if that’s your best effort, you need to resign.

He also references the Prime Minister’s poor performance in press conferences, his mixed messages to the public surrounding the GP co-payment and his broken promise that he wouldn’t touch funding to the ABC or SBS.

“He promised not to touch it – before he went ahead and made cuts to it.”

According to Kurlantzick “looked completely baffled” on climate change issues at the G20 summit in Australia last year and credits him with having “the worst senses of public relations of any prime minister in recent Australian history.”

Our PM, “the suppository of all wisdom.” #soproud

Kurlantzick stops short on taking a position on whether we’d fair better under a Labor or coalition-led governement, but he does say this:

“A country that for decades has punched above its weight on nearly every international issue surely can do much better for a prime minister than Tony Abbott.”

Can’t argue with that.