Tony Abbott first interview since leadership coup with Ray Hadley.

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott interviewed by Ray Hadley

Lanai Scarr National Political Reporter
The Daily Telegraph
September 29,2015.

TONY Abbott is confident he would have won the next election had he been left as Prime Minister.

The dumped PM, who lost his job to Malcolm Turnbull in a coup two weeks ago, this morning dismissed negative opinion polls and said he had never done well in public opinion polls.

“I am confident that if I had continued at head of this government that’s what we would have had (a victory),” Mr Abbott told 2GB’s Ray Hadley.

“If you look at my polling I’ve always done badly in the polls.

“You can be not popular in the ratings and at the same time lead a very effective opposition and government.”

Mr Abbott said internal party polling in the lead up to the Canning by-election showed the Liberal party would have won 57 per cent of the vote which is about what the final result was on the day.

He said the timing of the leadership spill was carefully coordinated to ensure a challenge was successful.

Turnbull wins Liberal leadership

“Because a strong result in Canning would have put paid to this notion that somehow I wouldn’t survive the next election,” Mr Abbott said.

He said he was doing OK after losing the nation’s top job, however was still not yet ready to make a decision on his future.

“57-years-old is still young,” he said of his age.

“I’m not ready to retire and I still have a lot to contribute to public life.”

Mr Abbott also lamented that he never watched his back while Prime Minister which may have led to his demise.

“I never believed in watching my own back,” Mr Abbott said in his first public interview since being rolled.

“Any leader who is watching his back is not focusing on the main job at hand. If the leader ever starts to play internal politics than the leader is in trouble.

“I always knew that politics was a brutal bruising business. It is a game of snakes and ladders and I’ve got a snake at the moment.”

Mr Abbott urged voters to stick with the Coalition at the next election and Malcolm Turnbull as Prime Minister.

“I can appreciate there are a lot of people out there who are dismayed by what has happened,” he said.

“But it would be even worse if we end up with the sixth prime minister in six years.”

Mr Abbott also denied that he ever thought about cutting loose former Treasurer Joe Hockey and his chief-of-staff Peta Credlin in order to placate any push for a change of leader.

“The idea that those people hungry for advancement would be mollified by if Joe went or my chief-of-staff is just wrong,” he said.

“They were not going to be put off if they were thrown a few human sacrifices and it is wrong to feed this beast.

“Joe and I were blood brothers when it comes to economic policy. The idea that I would have sacrificed Joe to save myself is just dead wrong.”

Mr Abbott also refused to weigh in on if he felt betrayed by his former deputy Julie Bishop and close ally Scott Morrison.

“I’d rather focus on the good work that they did,” he said.

“In the end all of us have got to answer to God and our consciousnesses and I am not going to get into who should have said what.”

On Scott Morrison in particular, Mr Abbott said: “At some point in time I’m sure we’ll have a conversation and we will resolve these things.”

Mr Abbott also urged politicians to stop the revolving door of prime ministers for the sake of the nation.

“This is a real problem for our country. The government can’t do what is necessary if you are subject to death by polls,” he said.

“We’ve had five prime ministers in five years. We are worse than Italy and only just better than Greece.

“For a country that has always had stable and effective government this is hardly the face we want to put to the world.”


Malcolm Turnbull acted when he did because he knew Canning by-election would strengthen Tony Abbott

Daniel Meers
The Daily Telegraph
September 29 2015.

FORMER Prime Minister Tony Abbott says Malcolm Turnbull executed him the week before the Canning by-election because he was on track for a strong result at the Canning ballot box.

In a 30 minute interview with Radio 2GB host Ray Hadley, aired live on television, Mr Abbott said his executioners were aware internal polling in Canning showed the government was on track for 57 per cent of the vote.

“One of the reasons why the ballot had to be brought on the week it was brought on by the proponents of a ballot was because a strong result in Canning, which is what we were going to get, would have put 

paid to this notion that somehow I was unelectable because of the polls,’’ he said.

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Turnbull and Co might just pay for their disgraceful lack of character

Why Tony Abbott was dumped.Lord Monckton and The Great American Bubble Machine

Malcolm Turnbull will fail if he can’t heal the Liberal Party

Andrew Bolt 
The Daily Telegraph
September 17, 2015 

PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s biggest problem isn’t Bill Shorten. No, knocking off that soiled Labor leader should be a cinch. Far more dangerous to Turnbull are the Liberals disgusted by the treachery and deceit that went into assassinating former leader Tony Abbott.

There is almost a revulsion among influential MPs, not just with Turnbull but his deputy, Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop. There is even anger with Scott Morrison, until now a hero of conservatives and about to become Turnbull’s treasurer.

For some this is now a moral question. They know they should be loyal to their party. They know Turnbull can beat Shorten. And they know their duty is to help Turnbull do that, given how unfit Shorten is to lead this country.

Yet Turnbull’s plotters make their skin crawl. I’ve talked to MPs, even moderates, who are sickened. Some wonder why they got into politics or even whether they should join a new party. That just adds venom to the anger that many conservative Liberals already feel for Turnbull — for a man of the Left they think has hijacked their party.

Let me give three examples of the scheming that makes it hard for Turnbull to expect much loyalty in return.

First, there was Julie Bishop’s disloyal silence. As deputy Liberal leader, Bishop had a duty to warn Abbott of threats to his leadership.

Yet on Channel 10’s The Project this week, she admitted she had heard of the planned challenge to Abbott — announced on Monday — “in the days beforehand”, although she later claimed “I had no idea of the timing until the day before”.

But Bishop did not warn Abbott of Turnbull’s plot until Monday. She’d been waiting to have the reports “confirmed by others”, she said.

Oh, really?

To add to the suspicion, when Abbott rang Bishop’s mobile last Saturday to discuss rumours of this challenge, Bishop did not answer and took a full day to ring back. No wonder, perhaps. Bishop had spent that Saturday at a Sydney charity event where she’d met Turnbull.

That’s been too much for Liberal Premier Colin Barnett, of Bishop’s home state of Western Australia. He accused her of “duplicity”, adding: “And there’s probably been some disloyalty.”

Second, there was Scott Morrison’s refusal to help Abbott defeat Turnbull. Morrison, the Liberal who stopped the boats, was emerging as Abbott’s natural successor and the star of the Liberals’ conservative wing. On Monday morning, just hours before Turnbull sprang his trap, Morrison insisted on 2GB he had “no idea” of any possible challenge. He said he was an Abbott supporter, so “if they were (plotting) they would not be talking to me”.

Interesting to hear Morrison talking to Hadley the morning of the coup he maintains total ignorance of. Tomorrow he will again appear on the Hadley show It will be an interesting show to say the least.

Yet later that day Morrison refused Abbott’s offer to be deputy Liberal leader on a joint ticket with Abbott against Turnbull and Bishop.

He was also effectively refusing to be Abbott’s new treasurer, since the deputy has their pick of portfolios.

True, Abbott was even then still foolishly reluctant to sack his existing Treasurer, the embattled Joe Hockey.

His offer really meant it was up to Morrison to sack Hockey and run against Bishop. But had Morrison said yes to Abbott’s offer, he and his five supporters would have helped to defeat Turnbull and would have encouraged other Liberal waverers to join them. A yes would also have meant that Morrison, a Pentecostal Christian conservative opposed to gay marriage, would have saved a fellow conservative from a Leftist and gay-marriage crusader

Yet Morrison chose not to fight for Abbott or for his beliefs. While privately telling Liberals and some journalists he remained an Abbott supporter, he gave no press conference to defend him and his coterie of MPs voted for Turnbull.

True, Morrison figured Abbott had poor judgment and was not a long-term bet. He also didn’t want to be in a contest with Bishop or in Abbott’s fight with Turnbull and will still get his reward — Hockey’s job as Treasurer. But where was the fighting for principle?

And then there was the sabotage.

Abbott, at his farewell press conference, denounced the “white-anting” by Liberal MPs, the “self-serving claims” peddled to journalists by his anonymous critics to do the work of “the assassin’s knife”.

It is too easily forgotten that Abbott by May had largely recovered in the polls, even drawing level with Labor in one. Journalists had started to question Shorten’s leadership instead. But Abbott’s recovery was then blown up. He was rocked by another burst of leaks, destabilisation and distractions by his own side that continued right up until Monday.

For instance, friendly journalists were told Bishop had warned Abbott to sack Hockey and that she’d told colleagues that Labor seemed to be running dead in next Saturday’s Canning by-election (allegedly to ensure the unpopular Abbott stayed prime minister until next year’s election). Abbott’s poll figures collapsed. They’d got him.

But, sure, no change of leaders is painless. And Turnbull’s plotters are right: they have given the Liberals a leader more popular than the man he replaced. By making the Liberals more electable, they may have done the party a big favour. And isn’t their higher loyalty to the party, not to Abbott, whose mistakes caused more damage than anything done by the plotters?

Yet many Liberal voters seem red-hot with anger. On Monday, more than 1000 sent me angry emails and messages, almost all abusing Turnbull and most saying they could never vote for the Liberals again if he led them. Callers to conservative talk shows are also spitting chips.

Conservatives were always going to be furious about having their party stolen by the Left. But many are now appalled by the treachery as well.

Alternative Conservative Party for disaffected Liberal Voters with the final say going to Stephanie Legendary Conservative 2GB caller

So this is now Turnbull’s great challenge. It will take all his charm and persuasiveness to heal a division that could wreck his campaign and even split his party.

He has already had one expensive reminder that many government MPs simply do not trust his word or his instincts. Take the Nationals, whose 15 House of Representatives MPs are needed by the Liberals to form government.

The Nationals on Tuesday arced up at Turnbull’s election as Liberal leader. They refused to back any government led by him until he’d signed a deal with them.

They know Turnbull is a warming alarmist and a bit carried away by his own brilliance. So they made Turnbull not only promise to spend $2 billion more on the Nationals’ pet schemes, but to guarantee he would not change Abbott’s policies on gay marriage and global warming.

Oh, and he had to give Nationals deputy leader Barnaby Joyce control over water policy.

That’s why Abbott took so long on Tuesday to formally resign. He had to wait for Turnbull to sign the Nationals’ deal. Until then, Turnbull couldn’t guarantee he had support in Parliament to form government.

That is just one sign of the tensions that threatens Turnbull most. So forget Shorten. He won’t much bother Turnbull.

No, Turnbull’s first big campaign must be not to destroy Labor but to heal the Liberals he now leads.

Julie Bishop Awakens Malcolm from GQ induced Slumber

Malcolm and Julie's victory speech