Tony Abbott has been appointed a director of a new centre for western civilisation – a thinktank which he says aims “to promote a more widespread study and understanding of the western canon.”



The former prime minister has declared the new post in his latest declaration of members’ interests, alongside an appointment to an advisory council that seeks to promote a “strong and prosperous” Ukraine. Abbott in his declaration foreshadows future travel to attend meetings of the advisory council in Kiev.

Abbott also indicates that the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists paid for his travel and accommodation to deliver a speech in Prague in mid-September where he urged Europe to adopt Australian-style border protection policies to avoid “losing control” – noting that the flow of asylum seekers across Europe “look[ed] like a peaceful invasion.”

Another Liberal MP, Julian Leeser, has also been appointed to the board of the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation, which is funded by the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

Paul Ramsay – the founder of Ramsay Health Care – a donor to the Liberal party and a friend of Abbott’s, donated most of his $3.3bn stake in the company he founded to charity after his death in 2014.

The only concrete details currently available about the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation come from an ad placed in the Australian in August 2015, advertising the role of CEO for the centre.



The ad says the centre is funded by the Paul Ramsay Foundation, and the primary aim is to “provide a perpetual endowment for the study of western civilisation”.

The ad further details the aims of the centre with specific programs including: the establishment of courses in western civilisation with three universities, school programs and scholarships.

The latest returns reveal the Liberal MP David Coleman, who chairs parliament’s economics committee – which on Tuesday grilled Commonwealth Bank executives – had shares in two financial services companies, the National Australia Bank, and insurer QBE, but they have now been deleted from his personal holdings.

The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and his wife, Lucy, have added investments in Vanguard Information Technology and Pokana Pty Ltd – and the couple has retained the gift of two pairs of RM Williams boots from the McGrath Foundation, paying the collector of public monies $300 to settle the difference between the allowable limit and the value of the gift.

Nationals MP Dr David Gillespie declared a number of shares in different companies, including AGL Energy. Gillespie had previously declared the sale of AGL shares in a 2014 update to the register of interests.

AGL Energy had a coal seam gas project in the Gloucester basin, which falls within Gillespie’s electorate of Lyne. The Gloucester gas project was shut down in February 2016, when AGL announced it would no longer be continuing with the project, and would begin rehabilitating the well sites.

Gillespie says he sold his and his wife’s joint shares in 2014, but his wife still owns a small number of shares in her own name.

“My wife still has a small residue of shares remaining. But given AGL’s commercial decision to withdraw from the Lyne electorate she did not perceive any conflict of interest,” he said.

Greg Hunt, who was previously the environment minister, declared his sponsorship of an orangutan through WWF, among other charity and community group memberships.

Liberals Nola Marino and Dan Tehan declared stakes in racehorses, and Labor MP Steve Georganas said he had inherited a small olive grove in Greece.

A number of returns have not yet been uploaded to the House of Representatives website, including the declarations of four cabinet ministers – Peter Dutton, Scott Morrison, Sussan Ley and Steve Ciobo.

The rules state that within 28 days of making an oath or affirmation, each member is required to provide to the registrar of members’ interests a statement of the member’s registrable interests.

It is not clear whether various MPs are in breach of the deadline, or if there is a lag in the processing.

