Washington: Newly minted Liberal Party president and former prime minister Tony Abbott says the party needs to give Australians a better product after a “dreadful year” of opposition as One Nation’s primary vote surged in the polls.
Speaking in Washington, DC, at the US launch of his book, Australia: A History hosted by BHP, Abbott described the Trump administration as an “in-house insurgency” with “what was effectively a hostile takeover of the Republican Party from within”.
Asked by former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet, now BHP’s vice president of international affairs and US, where he sees the challenge facing mainstream parties globally, with the rise of parties like Pauline Hanson’s One Nation in Australia and Reform UK led by Nigel Farage, Abbott said the “recent political story of the Anglosphere” is one of “political insurgencies, particularly on the right”.
Abbott said British conservatives felt they had been let down by the former conservative government under then-prime minister Rishi Sunak, but now may be “coming back a bit” under opposition leader Kemi Badenoch.
He acknowledged that in Australia, “the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government was felt by many of its strongest supporters to be a let-down”.
He said hopes of victory were high for the Liberal Party going into the 2025 election, but “a lack of conviction and a lack of political competence brought us undone”, followed by a “dreadful year” with the Coalition breaking up twice.
“In a democracy, if the people you vote for consistently let you down, you’ll end up voting for someone else. It’s a political marketplace,” Abbott said.
“If you, historically, bought Fords, but your Fords keep breaking down, sooner or later you won’t buy Fords any more. And if you’ve never liked General Motors, well, you might start buying Honda or Toyota or something, maybe even BYD – although thankfully Americans don’t let them in.
“That’s the problem. We’ve got to give the people of Australia a better product in the near future than we have in the recent past.
“I think we’ve made a good start under Angus Taylor. But if the polls are to be believed, there’s quite a long way to go.”
One Nation has moved past the official opposition in a slew of opinion polls, including the Resolve Political Monitor last month, and has since edged ahead of Labor in some others.
During the wide-ranging discussion on Tuesday (Washington time), including on migration, Abbott repeated comments made previously that he considers the Bondi Beach terror attack in December to be a “dreadful milestone” in Australia’s decline.
“I really thought after the Bondi massacre it was all hands on deck to rescue our country before things get worse,” he said, adding that it was in that spirit he was happy when Taylor suggested he take on the Liberal Party presidency.
He noted Bondi shooter Sajid Akram had arrived in Australia from India on a student visa in the late 1990s, while his son Naveed Akram, who allegedly opened fire on Jewish families with his father, had been born in Australia. He alleged the younger man was “plainly not well assimilated” and the pair “turned one of our most iconic locations into a shooting gallery”.
Abbott questioned the meaning of multiculturalism and said it was fair enough if it meant people becoming Australian in their own way and at their own pace, but was problematic if newcomers stuck to their old ways and “old thinking”.
“I think there’s been too much of the latter and not enough of the former multiculturalism recently,” he said.
“Too many of our recent migrants, instead of joining ‘Team Australia’ are simply living in ‘Hotel Australia’ and making the most of the facilities.”
Abbott quoted former prime minister Bob Hawke’s 1988 Australia Day speech that “in Australia … the commitment is all”, and said migrants need to “decide where their fundamental loyalty lies”.
Among the attendees at the event were Australia’s consul-general in New York, Heather Ridout, former South Australian premier Steven Marshall, now president of the American Australian Association in New York, and former US ambassador to Australia Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr.
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Sarah McPhee is the Overnight Homepage Editor for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.