If Tony Abbott threw punches to bully a woman who beat him in a Sydney University election 35 years ago, the nation would have heard about it by now, opposition frontbencher Christopher Pyne says.

Fairfax Media on Saturday published extracts from an article in The Quarterly Essay by David Marr, which detailed claims that, after losing a 1977 student election, Mr Abbott violently intimidated his opponent Barbara Ramjan.

Tony Abbott now, and on the cover of Good Weekend as a driven university student inspired by Catholic crusader Bob Santamaria.

"He came up to within an inch of my nose and punched the wall on either side of my head," Ms Ramjan, now a social worker, told Marr. "It was done to intimidate."