Who is Tony Abbott? Do we know him? I would not ask these questions, for example, of John Howard. His family was very much fashioned by World War I – both his father and grandfather enlisting (one incredible story has them meeting up, on the battlefield, a few hours before the lethal hostilities resumed). John Winston Howard, born in 1939, got his middle name from Winston Churchill. John Howard is what was once known as an Australian Briton.

Born in England, Abbott is a Catholic monarchist – a curious combination. One of his close friends, the late Christopher Pearson, used to hear the Mass in Latin. For a time, I likened Abbott to Guy Crouchback, a character from the pen of the English Catholic novelist Evelyn Waugh, a man with a reactionary and religious bent – hence Abbott's spell in the seminary as a young man.

'Respect does not come with titles - respect is earned. That belief, as much as any, defines me as an Australian.' Credit:Andrew Meares

But how do you square Catholic theology with wealthy Australia offloading its asylum-seeker problem to impoverished countries such as Papua New Guinea and Nauru? Cambodia? I'm sure one Catholic who wouldn't buy it is Pope Francis.

I always thought Abbott shared, with Julia Gillard, an awkwardness with Australian culture that was expressed, in Gillard's case, through her exaggerated accent, and, in Abbott's case, through the countless interviews he gave as opposition leader in his budgie smugglers.