The former prime minister says little of the Coalition’s policy has changed since his ousting and credits himself with laying a ‘strong foundation’ for re-election

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Tony Abbott has defended his record as prime minister in the first interview since being toppled by Malcolm Turnbull and said governments will continue struggle to make difficult reforms under the “febrile” politics which has led to party-room coups.

“How can governments make the decisions about difficult and necessary reforms if prime ministers are subject to the kind of death by opinion poll which we have seen in recent times,” he said in an interview with the Weekend Australian.

“Obviously I know, having been a practitioner of politics in this country, that the top job has never been less secure.”



Despite his promise of “no wrecking, no undermining and no sniping” after losing, Abbott appeared to take a little dig at his side of politics.

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“I never thought, having watched the Labor party implode, that the Coalition would want to venture down the same path,” he said.

He also suggested that nothing, apart from the Liberal party leadership, had changed. “In a policy sense, there is very little departure,” he said.

“Border protection policy the same, national security policy the same, economic policy the same, even same-sex marriage policy the same, and climate change policy the same. In fact, the rhetoric is the same.”

Abbott credited himself and his two years in power with giving Turnbull and the new treasurer, Scott Morrison, “a very strong foundation” from which the Coalition could seek re-election, which he said would be in the nation’s interests.

Abbott said he would not make a decision about his future before Christmas, but believed he was far too young to stop working.

As well as repeating his criticism of the press, Abbott also blamed the Senate and the opposition for his downfall.

“We had an obdurate Labor party, a feckless Senate and a very difficult media culture,” Abbott said. “I’m not complaining,” he said. “This is the world in which we live.

“The 2014 budget was a very serious structural attemp­t to tackle our long-term spending problems.”



Abbott defended the cuts to health and education and other measures in the Coalition’s deeply unpopular 2014 budget, which led to a run of dismal opinion polls for the Coalition ending in Abbott’s ousting.

“The fact is we did get $50bn worth of savings out of the budget over the forward estimates,” he said. “We improved the fiscal position by about half a percentage point of GDP in all of the out years.

“We were serious because we took very big political risks to bring cuts about.

“In the end, what counts is what the government decides not how it arrives at the decision. I think from all participants in the national conversation there has been an obsession with the trivial rather than the substantial and the long-term.”