Why Tony Abbott deserves a doona day (or two) this week.

Some days the outside world is too much to take on.

A few enlightened employers out there offer their employees one or two ‘doona days’ a year. They are separate to sick days when one is actually unwell and can’t come to work.

They are for the days – which we all have – when the alarm goes off and we cannot muster the requisite energy and enthusiasm to get to the office.

Instead of wrestling the angst of whether to feign a sick day or battle on, doona days exist so that once or twice a year, you can succumb. You can stay in bed and luxuriate in a lazy day.

Here in Australia we work extraordinarily hard. On average, full time employees supply their employers with 6 hours of unpaid overtime each and every week.

While ‘doona days’ are an indulgence, they are hardly unwarranted. And, this week, if there is anyone deserving of a doona day, or two, surely it is Tony Abbott. The man who started his week as the Prime Minister and will finish it as a backbencher having lost the leadership to his long-time political rival Malcolm Turnbull.

Can you imagine a worse week at work?

Abbott’s shortcomings as a Prime Minister were catastrophic. I have a laundry list a mile long of the issues I had and have with Tony Abbott. I believe Malcolm Turnbull’s challenge was entirely necessary and the party-room’s decision entirely justified.

But none of that precludes me from recognising that Tony Abbott has had a lousy, lousy week. I genuinely can’t imagine a more devastating set of events for him to endure. The fact he was the master of his own misfortune doesn’t change that. In fact, if anything, it might make it harder.

The fact that other politicians have fronted up to work the next day, in similar circumstances, says a lot about their resilience. But I am not inclined to punish Abbott for not doing the same. For not showing up to Question Time on Tuesday or Wednesday. How many of us would struggle to front up to a work event in the days following our public dismissal?

Tony Abbott’s backbench seat remained vacant during question time pic.twitter.com/I56wRHU0yL

— andrew meares (@mearesy) September 16, 2015

It wasn’t particularly becoming or inspiring when Tony Abbott kept his party and the government waiting for him to stand aside on Tuesday.  It wasn’t at all surprising that #WhereisTony trended or that so many have leapt on Abbott’s absence in parliament as another deep flaw. It’s not inspiring, but not everything is.

Tony Abbott’s absence is human and I am willing to give him some time to recover in the way most humans would. By laying low. By succumbing. By not being a picture of resilience.

The past five years in Australia’s parliament have been marred by brutal character assassinations. Tony Abbott is absolutely complicit in that. Many of us watched his leadership and longed for some compassion, for a little humanity. They say you need to be the change you want to see so let’s show Tony Abbott some compassion and humanity. He is no longer the Prime Minister. That will hurt for a long time to come.

Let’s give him a few doona days to recover.

Should Tony Abbott have turned up “to work” on Wednesday?