Tony Abbott has come out of hiding. The former prime minister was uncharacteristically quiet in the first few months since losing his seat at the federal election, as rumours of a plum ambassadorial posting swirled. Now, liberated from the shackles of the backbench, Abbott has found his increasingly reactionary voice again. He’s currently in the middle of a whistle-stop European tour, launching tirades against immigration and in defence of Brexit.
Ever the Anglophile, Abbott’s tour kicked off in London last month, with a “serious speech about Brexit” at Policy Exchange, Britain’s foremost right-wing think tank. As the October 31 Brexit deadline approaches, and with the United Kingdom reeling from three years of political self-immolation, Abbott told those worried about a no deal option not to fear — Australia doesn’t have a deal with the European Union, and we get on just fine. He also quoted the Bible while criticising the “remainers plot to sabotage Brexit”.
Next stop, Hungary, where in the increasingly authoritarian, far-right, immigrant-hating, Central European strongman Viktor Orbán, Abbott found a kindred spirit. Speaking at the Danube Institute, he was full of praise for the country’s muscular anti-refugee stance. At a population summit in Budapest, Abbott went further, praising Orbán, and warning of “angry military-age males swarming” into Europe. Orbán, meanwhile, appeared to reference the “great replacement” theory beloved by far-right terrorists.
This week, Abbott was back in the UK to address the Conservative Party conference, where he railed against the country’s “contemptible parliament” for stalling Brexit. Getting out of the EU, Abbott reassured the party faithful, would be “no big deal”.
Such speaking tours aren’t entirely new for Abbott. Since being knifed by Malcolm Turnbull in 2015, Europe’s conservative think tanks have played host to some of his more bizarre remarks — not least the 2017 claim that action on climate change was like primitive people killing goats to “appease the volcano gods”.
Then again, Abbott sharing his interesting ideas with the European right is probably the lesser of two evils — he could’ve been in Washington DC, wrangling with Trump right now.
Tones is clearly a threat to Australia’s national security. Perhaps Mutton can cancel his visa and deny him entry back into the country? The Poms are welcome to keep him.
Tony Abbott did say that making emissions reductions is like primitive people killing goats to appease the volcano gods, but went on to say, “We’re more sophisticated now but are still sacrificing our industries and our living standards to the climate gods to little more effect.” That is to say, the environmental movement is signalling virtuous sentiments without taking effective actions. If he is echoing a sentiment widespread among conservative and swinging voters, we had better take notice.
In fact we have sacrificed nothing and done nothing.
You can’t blame the environmental movements for the failure of Govt to take heed of the sciences/scientists in relation to AGW..Many an industry has been sacrificed on the alter of the neo-liberal gods…and so called widespread folk knowledge sentiments tend to know fuck all science and fuck all about scientific methodoligies…you can sheet the blame for that on the anachronistic thinking of Govt public education..
We could sacrifice our fears of nuclear energy. It is, after all, non-carbon energy.
I would agree IF there was a safe and cost effective nuclear energy production method. In the absence of such we have several methods of both energy supply and storage available. We just need the political will to support those.
Bref, if a group of you are afraid that nuclear energy is not safe, or cost-effective, it is incumbent on you to take action, to demand that it be made safe and cost-effective. You would soon find that the former has already been achieved and the latter only requires mass production. The youngsters are judging us on our actions, not our excuses.
I agree, we totally should not contemplate nuclear energy until production is proven safe and cost effective. I especially agree with your last sentence. I doubt todays youth would appreciate tens of billions in cleanup costs in fifty years, as they’re experiencing in the UK today from plants built in the 50s. (The UK is the only country I’m aware of which has had a parliamentary enquiry into the cleanup costs of their mothballed plants, the results of which are in the public domain).
Ditch the passive tense. We have to make it so.
Abbott must be really miffed that Obama was POTUS when he (Abbott) was PM. He would have gotten along just dandy with Trump.
Now there is one migrant we certainly did not need.
The onion muncher has been appointed to the board of Australian War Memorial. This is outrageous because he hasn’t submitted his report as the Closing the Gap Aboriginal Envoy. Skidda should insist on this acquittal before he slides him into another public trough.