Tony Abbott has been mortally wounded, and it is hard to see how he can survive.

Watching this right wing thug being torn apart by his own reactionary party room cannot but bring joy to anyone with a skerrick of human decency. It is truly delicious to savour.

And it has come about so quickly! Just 16 months after his triumph over the hopeless Rudd/Gillard Labor government, the pin-up boy of Andrew Bolt, Miranda Devine and the rest of Murdoch’s vermin, of the shock jocks like Alan Jones and Ray Hadley and virtually every other Neanderthal in the country, is now virtual mincemeat.

The crisis of the Liberal government is not simply the product of a few bizarre captain’s calls or of Abbott and Hockey’s inability to sell their message. It’s a product of the fact that the austerity package they were selling wasn’t being bought by large swathes of working class people.

Arrogance and deceit

The Liberals thought they could treat us like mugs. They thought they could get away with promising “no cuts” and “no surprises” before the election and do the exact opposite once in office. Their lies have come back to haunt them.

You didn’t have to be a genius to work out that the only people who were going to benefit from a Medicare co-payment, cuts to pensions, $100,000 university degrees, higher petrol taxes, abolishing the dole for young people and all the rest of the Liberals’ attacks, were the big end of town. While the rest of us had our basic public services slashed, corporate taxes – for the companies that somehow did not manage to evade them altogether – were to be cut yet again and the rights of workers further undermined.

The Liberal backbenchers who deserted Abbott did not do so because they are concerned about the fairness of the budget. The rebel MPs were a motley crew, including many from the hard right of the party, such as Western Australians Dennis Jensen, Don Ranald and Luke Simpkins. Their concern was to save their own skins from growing popular anger.

Abbott did not win the 2013 election because of a groundswell of popular enthusiasm for the Liberals’ agenda. He has never been a popular leader and was always seen as being too right wing.

The Liberals won because of cynicism, and disillusionment with a Labor government, supported by the Greens, that was at the beck and call of big business and had done nothing for the rights of workers, a government that remained wedded to neoliberal policies and refused to overturn completely Howard’s anti-worker WorkChoices laws.

Kick them while they’re down

In the face of popular anger, Abbott and Hockey have been forced to back away from some of their budget measures. If we step up the resistance, we can force further retreats from this badly weakened government.

We have a real chance to do that at the nationwide Fight for Your Rights rallies called by the ACTU for Wednesday, 4 March. Union and student activists and everyone else need to throw themselves into building for these rallies. A mass turnout will be another nail in the Liberals’ coffin and send a clear message to all senators.

While the Senate blocked or delayed a few of the worst measures from last year’s budget, it let through the bulk of the cuts. This is reflected in a marked fall in the rate of increase in government expenditure from (a totally inadequate) 3 percent under Labor to just 1 percent under Abbott and Hockey.

The only way we are going to force Labor, the Greens and the motley crew of crossbenchers in the Senate to block more of the Liberals’ austerity agenda is by creating as much fuss as possible.

Students showed the way last year with their lively protests against fee increases and the targeting of Liberal ministers whenever they dared to show their faces on campus. But Christopher Pyne is still talking about pushing ahead with university deregulation, so the protests need to be stepped up this year. A key starting point will be the National Day of Action called by the National Union of Students for Wednesday, 25 March.

It’s the agenda, not just the leader

The Liberals will undoubtedly craft their budget differently this year to try to create an image of fairness. Even their big business backers such as Kate Carnell, the CEO of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, recognise that Hockey and Abbott can’t get away with another budget that so obviously targets the poor and vulnerable.

Yet Carnell and other big business leaders are still demanding cuts to company taxes, a tight rein on government expenditure, further labour market deregulation and tougher anti-union laws. So we face continuing austerity, stagnant wages and rising unemployment covered over with a few token gestures to create an image of even-handedness.

And let’s not be under any illusion that things will be any better if Turnbull or Bishop, let alone Morrison, replace Abbott as prime minister. Turnbull may be more urbane and articulate than Abbott, but he is one of the richest men in parliament and thoroughly integrated into Australia’s business elite.

Turnbull, unlike Abbott, may not worship the monarchy and may have a less reactionary stance on some social issues such as same sex marriage. However, on core economic issues he is in lock step with Abbott and Hockey. Turnbull did not raise a squeak of opposition to their austerity budget.

Indeed, Turnbull, the former merchant banker and onetime lawyer for Australia’s most corrupt ever businessman, Kerry Packer, has a more thoroughgoing ideological commitment to unbridled neoliberalism than even Abbott. In a recent speech delivered in Los Angeles, he made clear his support for letting the market rip.

He threw his full weight behind university deregulation, calling on Australia to copy the US model with its exclusive Ivy League universities for the elite and third rate community colleges for the rest of us.

Any idea that Turnbull, with his $52 million harbourside mansion in Sydney’s exclusive Point Piper, has more of the common touch than Abbott is sheer fantasy.

The same applies to the hardnosed former corporate lawyer Julie Bishop. Her role as the lead defence lawyer for asbestos company CSR in its attempt to deny compensation to workers at the Wittenoom mine dying from asbestos-related diseases says it all.

The bottom line is that while it will be great to see the backs of Abbott and Hockey, no matter who heads the Liberal Party, we need to mobilise and fight.

Don’t rely on the ALP

It isn’t enough simply to vote Labor back into office at the next elections. Shorten and Co. in opposition may mouth criticisms of the Liberals’ attacks, but time and time again in government it has been a very different story from Labor. Far from reversing the Liberals’ core anti-working class policies, in office the ALP has also ruled for the rich.

Queensland is a prize example. Campbell Newman has been thrown out of office because of his harsh austerity measures and a proposed further round of privatisations. But it was the previous Bligh Labor government that went full throttle down the road of privatisation and throwing public sector workers on the unemployment scrap heap.

If we step up the fight now, we have a real chance of further denting the attacks of a weakened Abbott government. At the same time, we can send a signal to Labor that we will not meekly cop whatever they dish out in government. Hand in hand with organising that fight back, we also need to begin building a determined left wing political alternative to the two parties of neoliberal capitalism.