Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott makes no apology for handing over cabinet documents to a royal commissioner.

The files, found in a cabinet obtained by the ABC, claim Mr Abbott ignored his department’s advice when he gave cabinet documents to a royal commission investigating Labor’s botched home insulation scheme.

The cabinet files claim the secretary of Mr Abbott’s department and the Australian Government Solicitor warned him not to provide the documents.

Mr Abbott tells Ben Fordham it was in the nation’s best interests to hand over the confidential documents.

“I thought we owed it to the country.

“We certainly owed it to the parents, the grieving parents of the four young men who were killed as part of the most incompetent government program in the Commonwealth’s history, to get to the bottom of it.”

“There’s a world of difference between giving these documents to a royal commissioner…and releasing these documents to busybodies under FOI [Freedom of Information] which happens all the time.

“I am proud of the fact that on very important occasions it was absolutely necessary to go against public service advice.”

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