Charlie, you recently went to Mossman for Tony Abbott's launch of his new book, Australia A History. What did you walk into?
Well, there's a lot of ways I could answer that, I guess. I suppose the primary place I walked into was an extremely beautiful and very well off area in the north Northern Beaches of Sydney, which was part of the Wringer Electric which was obviously Abbot country for about a quarter of a century.
Charlie Lewis writes about politics for Kracky. He's been a close observer of Tony Abbott, from his time as Liberal Party bomb thrower to his face off with Julia Gillard to his short Prince Philip themed time as PM. Now Charlie is tracking Abbot's political aft life, which brings him to Sydney's affluent Northern Beaches.
This was held at the Modern Rowers Club, which is a very salubrious place to catch up. I had one of those slightly anxiety dream sort of experiences. The food looked fantastic, but I kept reaching for platters that kind of kept drifting away with the waiters or not being in quite the right place at the right time. I don't know, but the general mood in the crowd was very pro Tony and very pro his vision of Australia.
I would say Tony Erwitt's vision for Australia still reverberates through his connections at SKA News, to he's behind the scenes maneuverings within the Liberal Party, to the version of history he writes about in this book.
The general tone and the way they talked about it on the night was essentially that the kind of left skolds of academia have given us a very dark and black arm band idea of our history, and that this book is I think an explicit attempt to redress that balance in ABD size, to give a more positive and celebratory take on Australian history. And it's probably fair to say his take would be if you had to be colonized better, it'd be the British than the Belgians, or something like that.
I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM today, Charlie. There was some tiny average legacy and he's continuing control over the Liberal Party. It's fun day, October twenty.
So, Charlie, what was the mood like in the room cherry and very celebratory. I mean, I guess you would expect the tone to be this way. It's obviously it's a publisher organized event. It's not going to be a grilling. I guess it'll give you an idea of the tenor of the crowd that when he was being pushed or challenged on any of his analysis of Australian history was
often for not being right wing enough. So he kind of comes to the conclusion that the two great prime ministers in Australian history from his point of view a Bob Hawk and John Howard, and he talks about his reasons why he thinks that's the case. And so one of the most kind of challenging questions he got it was again very friendly put but it was like, well what about Robert Menzies, Like how could you include a
labor guy above Robert Menzies. Basically it was kind of about his hardcore as question in got controversial.
So tell me about the book itself and how did they speak about it on the night.
It's a funny. One One of the things that really struck me about the night is that a lot of the kind of little culture war mentions that he made felt quite old school in and of themselves. He kind of went back to the idea that there's this group of people who were constantly trying to topple all of our statues, And I thought no one said that for about five years. As far as I can tell, I don't think that's It seemed like it was. It had frozen a little bit at the end of his time
in Parliament. So I suppose there is very much that influence coming through in his idea of commemoration and what story gets told, and I suppose who gets to tell that story?
And all this took place in the electorate that voted him out in twenty nineteen. But there's clearly still a lot of love for Tony Abbott in some quarters. Why do you think there is a lasting appeal for for Rabbit among sections of the Liberal community.
Yeah, I mean, I don't think anyone any other minister from that era, from the Rudd, Gillard, Rudd, Eras from Turnbull, definitely not Morrison. I don't think any of them will
retain that level of personal appeal. And I suppose there's a few different things that I think inform that I remember talking to a lot of his supporters way back in twenty nineteen when I covered his last election in Worringer, when he was defeated by Independent Zali Stegel, talking to some of his supporters, people like Gideon Rosner who was then at the Institute of Public Affairs, his former colleague Nick Minchem, and a big thing that kind of kept
coming up was the what might have been element, the fact that he didn't make it to a second term. Really actually, in some ways Launders his reputation because they were able to sort of argue, well, you know, no one does that well on their first term. No one gets that popular and beloved until they've get a few
terms and they can really build a legacy. So in a way, the failure kept him pure because you know, if you compare it to Anthony Alberneze, who's currently is set up his party with this historic majority, he has set up the possibility of a very long labor reign, and yet somehow he seems to just make people more and more angry at him throughout that whole process because it involves so much compromise and negotiation and kind of disappointment,
but is not teaching with any of that. He burns out and then also destroys Malcolm Turnbull, which is I think what a lot of people who still love him would consider his great His great legacy is he took that Prime Minister down. I should I should say. One of one of the biggest laughs he got the in the evening was when talking about his own time and saying, look, I was only power for a couple of years. That that gets about a half a page. I think that's
about fair. He then quickly headed I gave Malcolm Turmble a third of a page, got howls of laughter in the room, and they through the little harbourside mansion reference in there, which I thought was very funny given that we were surrounded by harbourside mansions where we.
Were coming up. How Tony y Abbott still shapes the Liberal Party, Charlie Tony Ebbitt's been out of Parliament since twenty nineteen, but how would you described why he's still influencing his party.
I think he is seemingly kind of still manipulating quite a bit of what's going on in the Liberal Party.
After the wipeout. Has come a shock switch numper Jimp Price announcing she's jumping the National ship to join the Liberal Party room, surprising members of the party that got her onto the federal stage.
The defection of sench inis Enter Price. The idea that this came directly from Abbott's machinations. He was making phone calls and sending texts on his way to on his way to Hungary to address a victor. Aubam linked think tank doesn't seem to be contested. And also the interesting one recently is Andrew Hasty, who obviously has I think quite battlingly qupit the opposition benches to be a backbench.
Yesterday I called the leader yesterday morning. In fact, I informed her of my decision. It was a very friendly and respectful conversation. And here we are. So I'll move over.
To questions now really challenging the leadership.
No, I won't be who I think was both implicitly and in some cases explicitly. I think someone who was identified as the kind of air apparent to that muscular, religiously informed conservatism that Abbot kind of evinced in his time in office. I mean, the direct lineage between the two is an interesting one. When Abbot was voted out, he essentially handed his mailing list over to Hasty. So everyone who got emails from Abbot when he was in
office now gets emails from Hasey. That to me is quite a suggestive person to choose to hand that information over to. So it'll be very interesting to see how that plays out. I mean a lot of the best reporting on this has been done recently by the Saturday Paper. Jason Kotsukas has done some really good stuff on this, and they quoted a moderate liberal saying, look, if you want to know why the partiesn't such as smoking ruin right now, look no further than Tony Abbut and Peter Kredline.
They've still got their hands all over the place.
So he shined a clear and continued he christ in continuing to influence his party. What says did you get Charlie from being at Tony Abbots launch about whether he still holds out hope for getting back into politics.
So the audience were very pro Tony, and inevitably it came up a few times that people said have you ever thought about throwing your hat back in the ring?
One person just explicitly said, you know, we need you back, Tony, and that got a big cheer, and there was a moment I think of genuine self awareness, where he said, Look, the thing that you have to realize is that I benefit from the globe of nostalgia that if I got back into politics, a lot of the people who are now calling for my return would start liking me quite swiftly. You do wonder if even if he did really real secretly wished to come back, or how's he going to
do it. The electorate that he held for twenty five years, he got very soundly beaten pretty much as soon as they could find a fairly credible alternative. As II Segel has since then, we've seen her in two consecutive elections increase her margin rather than seeing some kind of slide back towards the riots. So that being the case, who's going to give up their safe seat for him to
return to Parliament. There's also the fact that we've just had a federal election where we've just seen that the Abbot playbook perhaps has hit diminishing returns quite conclusively with the voting out of Peter Dutton, who echoed, shall we say a lot of the tactics and approaches that Abbot
so successfully wielded as not position leader. The other thing that really stands out about Abbot's time is that, yes, he was a very effective opposition leader, but he was also an effective opposition leader in a good time to have been the opposition leader. The obviously the labor part he was doing an extremely good job opposing itself at that time, and obviously that combined with the very full throated support of the majority of the media in this country.
But he was able to like rid all that to you know, a very thumping victory. But then you see what that looks like in kind of practical terms, and it's it's Prince Philip been given a knighthood. It's it's the strangest, most unocomically punitive budget that manages to please almost well literally nobody. So as soon as people saw that, you know, obviously his kind of personal popularity goes off
the cliff. So whether Australian voters kind of respond to the more grand visions of a figure like Abbot, I sort of suspect them. Maybe they don't.
So what do you think, Tanyeah, what's political legacy is and how has he shaped this country in the long term.
I suppose the policy legacy of Abbot is probably pretty minimal. When you think about it, when he came in, he maintained a lot of the social infrastructure that had been put in place by the former labor government. He sent mixed messages and wounded a lot of it, but he didn't change, for example, industrial relations, which was usually a big thing that a liberal government would want to do
after a labor government. I think his primary legacy, and again we are now seeing perhaps it kind of curl towards its end, is one of tome, one of approach, provocation, the low blow, the negative campaign, the opposed all costs kind of approach to politics that lasted us quite a long time up until It's an interesting thing that he had.
I believe the book ends with the defeat of the Voice to Parliament, and that's probably the place where Abbot would see, whether he would admit it or not, would see perhaps the strongest impact of his legacy, the approach that the Liberal Party took to. That was the I think the strongest, loudest echo of Abbot's time in politics. But it would be very interesting to see how well that holds up, say it the next time election, whether they try and do a different approach entirely.
And given he said he doesn't want to return to politics because it might impact his purity in the eyes of his followers. What do you think Abbott wants to do next?
It would appear from recent reporting that he feels his best bet is to be kind of move into that John Howard role as the kind of elder states of the Liberal Party, the guy that kind of has some gravitas just merely by his length of public service, his length of time in the public eye. And I think he's doing quite a good job of achieving that. Just in the last few months. It's felt like that's the tone of the interviews that he's getting, whether it's with
The Australian or even with the Nine Papers. So I suppose I think he would view his sort of best bet for an ongoing influence in Australian public life via those processes, via being the kind of public intellectual, and also by kind of trying to manipulate the Liberal Party kind of behind the scenes and get his kind of preferred people in place who you have to assume are being influenced policy wise by what we hear from turning over.
Charlie Lewis, thank you so much for your time.
Thank you so much Sonuel.
Also in the news, David little Prow says he doesn't want Barnaby Joyce to leave the Nationals, saying the New England MP still has a contribution to make. Joyce has reportedly been in talks with Pauline Hanson to defect from the Nationals and join One Nation. On the weekend, Barneaby Joyce Cidy won't be recontesting his Lower House seat at the next election due to a breakdown in relations with
the Nationals leader. He didn't rule out joining One Nation, and Hanson confirmed previously discussing this with him and millions of Americans have taken to the streets in every US state to protest the Trump administration. The No King's protests on Saturday marked one of the largest days of protest in US history. Republican governors in several states placed National Guard troops on standby in preparation for the valies, and in Texas and Virginia they were deployed ahead of the protest.
US President Donald Trump gave Fox News an interview and declared that he is not a king. I'm Daniel James. This is seven a m. Thanks for listening.