Tony Abbott and me: Our former PM spills on life after the spill

Daily Telegraph (Sydney) ^ | 26th September 2015

[naturalman1975]

At 3.15pm on the Monday before last, Tony Abbott was sitting in the Prime Ministerial Suite preparing to meet a group of girl guides

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“It was a conversation with Malcolm that had to be a little more than 30 seconds. Nevertheless (the girl guides) had to wait five or 10 minutes.

“No doubt he went off to get on the phones and prepare his statement … and I went out into the courtyard and met with girl guides and school groups.

“Whatever might have been going through my mind, the fact is you still have a job to do. Every moment you are in that job you have a job to do and it’s important to do it with dignity and grace.”

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His judgment on policy, however, clearly wasn’t wrong.

Turnbull has vowed to keep almost all of them — even acknowledging Abbott’s achievements as being “formidable”.

On this score alone, history will be obliged to judge Abbott accordingly.

“In a policy sense there is very little departure,” Abbott says. “Border protection policy the same, national security policy the same, economic policy the same … even same-sex marriage policy the same, and climate change policy the same. In fact the rhetoric is the same.