TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW

TONY ABBOTT 2GB 29 SEPTEMBER 2015

TONY ABBOTT: I'm very conscious of the fact Ray that whenever there was a
boat arrived under the former Government you sounded the bell so to speak,
you were in the forefront of the campaign against the pink batts disaster, the
school hall scandal and all of that. I really owe it to you and your listeners to
come on and say thank you for six good years and I really am very grateful.

RAY HADLEY: I've been contacted by a lot of listeners, some have said
move on, there's a new Prime Minister, how dare you even suggest we vote
for anyone other than a Liberal candidate. And there are others who are
greatly concerned about your wellbeing. I'm a supporter of RUOK Day, mental
health among men, particularly who are not forthcoming. So Im going to say
RUOK?

ABBOTT: Yes I am Ray and thank you for your concern. I always knew that
politics was a pretty brutal business. It's a game of snakes and ladders
and yes I've hit a snake. It's a bruising business to lose the prime ministership
but on the other hand it's a tremendous honour to have the prime ministership
and I could probably dwell on some bad things if I wanted to but I would rather
focus on the privilege, the honour, of being the PM of this great country for
two years.

HADLEY: Do you remember you and I having conversations over the years
about getting that bit of four by two out and going after your opponents in a
more vigorous way and we used to joke about it but if it was I'd do it this way
but Im not the Prime Minister, you are, do you regret in any way being a little
bit softly softy in relation to your people on your side of politics and your
opponents as well?

ABBOTT: That's a very good question Ray. I think I was a pretty fierce
Opposition Leader but I've always thought that you should focus on the
other side, expose their flaws, where there are problems with the other side
it's your job as the leader of one side to expose all of that mercilessly.
I've never believed in watching my own back. I always thought that the

important thing was to focus on those who are supposed to be your

opponents and in Government and Opposition that's exactly what I've done.

HADLEY: With at the benefit of hindsight was that a fault that you didn't
watch your own back?

ABBOTT: Any leader who is watching his back is not focussing on the main
job and if you are watching your back almost by definition you're going
backwards. If you're looking in front, almost by definition you're going forward.
So that's always what I did. I was always very conscious of the fact, Ray,
that the best way to ensure my flourishing as leader of the Coalition was to do
a good job and that's why we did scrap Labor's bad taxes, we did stop the
boats, we did get the big new roads starting including the Badgerys Creek
airport, we did make a very, very good start to Budget repair, we had the three
free trade agreements that had eluded previous Governments, we
effectively ended business welfare, we started the trade union
royal commission, which is doing great work and will continue to do great
work, we ended the green veto on big projects, so I was always focussed
on building for the future, because that I think is the job of the leader. And if
the leader ever starts to play internal politics, well I think the leader almost by
definition is in big trouble.

HADLEY: And you were in that last week, do you look upon your Deputy
Leader Julie Bishop and Scott Morrison as two people you could, and have
thought you relied upon who you couldn't in that last week?

ABBOTT: You've got to rely on the people close to you, you just have to.

HADLEY: Did they let you down?

ABBOTT: Well look all I can say of both Julie and of Scott, they were
extremely effective ministers in my Government, very effective Ministers in my
Government and I'd expect them to continue to be very effective ministers
in the new Government.

HADLEY: I spoke to Scott Morrison and got into plenty of trouble for
offering him a Bible, to swear on the Bible that he had warned your office on
the Friday before the spill. You came out and spoke to Taylor Auerbach in the
'Daily Telegraph' the following Tuesday, and said that Scott had misled my
listeners. On that Friday, did Scott Morrison talk to Peta Credlin or anyone
in the PM's office using expressions that the backbench and the party
generally were febrile?

ABBOTT: Certainly there was a conversation as I understand it between Scott

and Peta Credlin. He's obviously put one construction on the conversation,
my office put a different construction on the conversation. It's probably a bit
counterproductive to revisit all of this now, the last thing I want Ray to
come out of this interview is a headline Abbott slams Morison because I think
you're going to get

HADLEY: I think youre going to get it anyway.

ABBOTT: I'd rather focus on the good work that Scott did first of all as
Minister for Immigration and Border Protection and then as Minister for social
services. He's a very strong and effective Minister. He was a strong
and effective Minister in my Government, I'm sure he'll be a strong and
effective Minister in the new Government and, look, at some point in time no
doubt we'll have a conversation and we'll resolve those things.

HADLEY: I said that to him yesterday. I asked him had he reached out to you.
He said no. He said that he was concern for you and your family and he
wanted to leave you alone but I said in the future given that you were so close
it would be disappointing if you didn't re-establish some form of relationship.
Using the term mates is a fairly loose Australianism, but you were pretty close
to him, you were one of his mentors?

ABBOTT: Yeah and obviously when you're the party leader for almost six
years, and when such a large part of your work is stopping the boats, given
the comprehensive failures of the former Government which started them up
again, obviously you work very, very closely with the relevant Shadow Minister
and then the Minister.

Look in the end, I suppose all of us have got to answer to our god and
our consciences, I'm just not going to get into who might have said what, who
should have said what, to whom and when, I'm just not going to get into that,
Ray.

The important thing today is to say thank you to your listeners for
their support, it's to express my extraordinary gratitude for privilege of being
Australia's Prime Minister for two years and my conviction that my
Government did leave a very, very strong foundation, a lot of terrific things
were done in two years and I hope that the new Government and the new
Prime Minister are able to build on that strong foundation.

HADLEY: I want to play some audio that's copped a hammering in the media
and it was shortly after Kevin Rudd's demise.

Malcolm Turnbull, 2013: All of news politics suffer great, enjoy great highs
and often suffer great lows and setbacks. And I will never forget the day that
you gave your press conference following your removal as leader of the
Labor Party by your colleagues. It is etched in my memory. It was one of the
cruellest moments I've ever witnessed. The betrayal of you as leader of your
party was one of the most shocking events I've ever witnessed and I
would think Madam Speaker any of us have ever witnessed in politics. The
scale of it, the idea that the man that had won, in this presidential
campaign, an election against John Howard was then going to be disposed of
discarded, like another course on a lazy Susan in a Vietnamese restaurant.
The cruelty of it, was extraordinary.

HADLEY: It was extraordinary. I said having played that two days after
you were sent packing, that either that was the most insincere speech made
in Parliament or he'd had some sort of memory loss, the now Prime Minister.
What's your view listening to that as you listened to it on the day?

ABBOTT: Yeah, well, Ray, I think Malcolm obviously points to a real problem
and that is the revolving door prime ministership. This is real problem for our
country because the last four changes of Prime Minister, only one has been at
the hands of the people, the other three have been at the hands of what the
public would think is a backroom cabal. Now this is a real problem for our
country.

The difficulty with the revolving door prime ministership is that

government can't do what is necessary for the long-term good of our country if
you're subject to death by polls and then ultimately a party room coup. It's
very difficult to do the right thing by our country if this kind of thing happens.
My hope is that what happened a fortnight ago finishes all of this stuff, that we
get right away from this concept of changing the leader like you might change
your clothes to suit the fashion, because our country is better than that, our
country deserves better than this, and one of the man reasons why I think
it's important that the new Government be returned at the next election is
because we've had five prime ministers in five years. That's bad, that puts us
in the league of Italy and Greece, in fact we're worse than Italy and just better
than Greece.

Imagine if we were to have six PMs in six years, then we would be worse than
Greece and for a country which has always had very stable government, very
effective government, this is hardly the face we want to present to the world or
this is hardly what we want to do to our-self.

HADLEY: Well the Labor Partys changed that. It would be almost impossible
to change the Prime Minister in the same circumstances that Gillard replaced
Rudd let alone replace Shorten as Opposition Leader. What should
the Government, in other words your party, a party you've been part of for
your entire life, what should they do to ensure that it doesn't happen to them
in the future?

ABBOTT: I think do what's always been done up to now and that is to provide
support for the leader. It is very important that like a good team Coalition
Members of Parliament, Liberal Members of Parliament because in the
end this is a matter for the Liberal party room. It's very important that Liberal
Members of Parliament stick with the leader and sure there'll be difficult times,
sure there'll be up and downs, but people of character and steadiness
don't panic with the polls, they stick with good policy and the interesting
thing is that no policy has changed since the change of Prime Minister.
Border protection policy the same.

HADLEY: Same-sex marriage the same.

ABBOTT: Climate change, the same. Border protection policy, the same.
National security policy, the same and you listen to the Prime Minister and

the Treasurer, they're even using exactly the same phrases that Joe Hockey
and I were using just a fortnight ago.

HADLEY: Slogans you mean?

ABBOTT: I think they're resonant phrases. We do have a spending

problem rather than a revenue problem. We do want lower simpler fairer
taxes, we are building for the future. These were things that I said, that
Joe said, and now of course Malcolm and Scott are saying because
they're right, they're absolutely right.

HADLEY: This is typical of emails and I can't read the hundreds of emails that
are coming in but Les and Phillis on the central coast is saying "please assure
Tony, everyone is discussing with how he was treated, I know its important to
support the Coalition but we're finding it very difficult

This is what's come through to me. This are two types of Coalition supporters
at the moment, the ones that say get over it, build a bridge, he's gone, move
on, Turnbull's not my favourite politician but he's better than Shorten
and there are others like Les and Phillis who simply say I can't forgive
the Coalition for what they did, or not the Coalition, The Liberal Party for what
they did to the Prime Minister. So what is your message to Les and Phills and
people like them?

ABBOTT: Well I'm pleased you've asked me that question Ray because it
would be terrible if people were to abandon the Liberal Party. It would
be terrible if people were to abandon the Coalition because of this. It's always
better to stay in and fight, as it were, it's always better to avoid making a bad
situation worse and I can appreciate that there are a lot of people out
there who are dismayed by what happened but as I said, it would be even
worse if we were to end up with a sixth PM in six years. It would be
even worse if we were to end up with a CFMEU dominated
government, which we could well at the next election if people do not stay in
and even if they have to do it through gritted teeth, support the
Coalition, support the PM, support the Government.

I mean, look, I have some respect, considerable respect for Bill Shorten, who
at least on national security issues has been a very steady collaborator, I've
got to say, almost a partner when it comes to national security issues

But it's not just Shorten versus Turnbull, it's the Coalition versus the
Labor Party, and the Labor Party I'm afraid, it hasn't changed, it can't learn. If
anything the union influence is getting stronger, not weaker, the unions take a
lowest common denominator approach to everything, not a highest common
factor approach, and the last thing we want is to shackle our economy to the
past and that's inevitability what will happen if there is a return to Labor
Government at the next election.

HADLEY: We spoke earlier about what you were able to achieve as a Prime
Minister: stopping the boats ending the deaths at sea, axing the carbon tax,
introducing major anti-terrorism legislation with the cooperation of
the Opposition, you've given Bill Shorten credit for that, you formed the royal
commission into trade union corruption now Bill would like Dyson Heydon to
be consigned to the back blocks of western NSW never to be seen again
but mostly importantly, re: today you, signed free trade agreements with
Korea, Japan and China, now the Chinese Ambassador is saying today if this
doesn't get done shortly, it doesn't get done.

ABBOTT: Exactly right.

HADLEY: What does Mr Turnbull, what does he do to convince Shorten

that he's got to come to the table on this otherwise it ends up a real mess?

ABBOTT: Well, what I was planning to do in the most recent sitting week was
what in fact happened in the last sitting week, and that is we introduced the
legislation for the free trade agreement. I presumed that this will be in the
Senate in the next sitting fortnight and this is where it is absolutely imperative
that the Labor Party support the legislation.

By all means, if they must, complain about aspects of it although

the interesting thing about this particular free trade agreement is that all of the
things that they're now complaining about were in agreements that they did
and they thought it was OK for them to do, now of course because it was an
achievement of my Government, they're against it but this is something that

will set Australia up not just for years but for decades. It is absolutely critical, it
has a smooth and swift passage through the Parliament.

HADLEY: Just a couple of things before we leave. Canning, was it right

that before your axing in the lead-up, the week before immediately that
election, so it would have been about 14 days before it, the polling that you
saw was reflected on what actually happened on polling day. Was that
correct?

ABBOTT: Yeah look the Liberal Party's internal polling the weekend before
the Canning by-election was that we were going to end up with 57% of
the two-party preferred vote.

HADLEY: And that's how it ended.

ABBOTT: Roughly there, yeah.

Look one of the reasons why the ballot had to be brought on the week it
was brought on, by the proponents of a ballot, was because a
strong result in Canning, which is what we were going to get,
would have put paid to this notion that somehow I was
unelectable because of the polls. The interesting thing Ray is that if you
judge things by the polls I've never been very popular.

HADLEY: (Laughs)

ABBOTT: All through the days of Opposition my personal ratings were

poor, but it didn't stop us almost winning - I mean, effectively we won the 2010
election, but we lost the negotiation.

HADLEY: Yes.

ABBOTT: Then, of course, in 2013 it was a very, very emphatic thumping

victory.

HADLEY: And a presidential-style victory by you?

ABBOTT: Exactly right, because our politics rightly or wrongly is more and
more presidential. You can be not especially popular in these
personal approval or disapproval ratings and at the same time lead a very
effective political operation, lead a very effective opposition or indeed a very
effective government.

We saw with David Cameron in Britain just a couple of months back the
British conservative government was behind in the polls the entire
time, absolutely the entire five years they were behind in the polls and then
they had really quite a convincing victory. I am confident that had I continued
at the head of the Government that's exactly what we would have had.

HADLEY: I was flicking through Greg Sheridan's book 'When We were Young
and Foolish: a memoir of misguided youth with Tony Abbott, Bob Carr,
Malcolm Turnbull, Kevin Rudd and other reprobates, and it's amazing you
should talk about your lack of success in opinion polls as opposed to
your success in elections. He wrote, "Late in 1978 Tony Abbott won the
presidency of the SRC at Sydney Uni in a record turnout of students. It was a
cracking victory an early sign of his ability to polarise an electorate and
unexpectedly win. It was an extraordinary achievement for a student leader
who'd been harassed, vilified and painted in a grotesque if
unforgiveable colour by his opponents since the moment he stepped
onto campus." Life never changed for you? From 78 to 2015, grotesque.

ABBOTT: It never did, but in the end you've got to stand for things, Ray and
right all the way through I've stood for things and back in 2009 the Coalition
was in diabolical difficulty, absolutely diabolical difficulty, because we
were making weak compromises with a bad government and I said that
the job of the then Leader of the Opposition, the leader of the Coalition,
was to stand for things, was to establish some clear policy positions on
which to run and fight an election. Now this is always true. It's always
true in government or in opposition, you've got to stand for
things, you've got to fight for things, you've got to be building a better
Australia every day and that means knowing exactly what you want to
change, why you want to change it and then getting on with it.

HADLEY: Final thing, do you accept now had you jumped Joe Hockey
and perhaps farewelled Peta Credlin any time in the last couple of months
and given Scott Morrison the job that he now has you would have remained
as Prime Minister?

ABBOTT: No look this is a real myth. The idea that people who were
hungry for advancement would somehow be mollified if Joe went or if
my Chief of Staff went is just nonsense. When someone is absolutely
focussed on a particular objective, they're not going to be put off if they're
thrown a few human sacrifices, as it were, and frankly it's wrong to feed this
particular beast. It's absolutely wrong.

And on the subject of Joe, Joe and I were in lockstep on last year's Budget, it
was a difficult Budget obviously, but it was a necessary Budget, it was
a Budget for savings and we did get $50 billion of savings through the forward
estimates as a result of the changes that were originally put forward in that
Budget.

Then, of course, we were able this year to bring down a Budget for
confidence, with as you know Ray, all of those special arrangements for small
business such as the instant asset write-off.

So Joe and I were absolute blood brothers when it comes to economic policy
and the idea that I could have just casually sacrificed Joe to save myself is
dead wrong. As for my Chief of Staff, look no-one worked longer and harder
for our success in opposition and in government than she did and noone's perfect, no-one's perfect. I suppose occasionally she may have spoken
brusquely to one or two people -

HADLEY: Oh, shock, horror.

ABBOTT: Who wanted more respect -

HADLEY: And do it as a woman.

ABBOTT: But the job of the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff is to be strong, it's
to be tough, it's to be focussed and look she did an absolutely marvellous job.

HADLEY: When will you make a decision on your long-term future?

ABBOTT: Ray, I'm not rushing to make a decision. I think I'm a

reasonably vigorous 57 -

HADLEY: Well you're far more vigorous than the 61-year-old sitting opposite
you, I can tell ya.

ABBOTT: These days a 57-year-old is not old. You've got a good 20 years of
pretty active life ahead of you I reckon at 57 if you've looked after yourself. So
look I'm too young to retire. I've still got something to contribute to public life.
There's not going to be a by-election in Warringah any time soon, but I'm not
going to make any final decisions this side of Christmas.

HADLEY: How's your wife coped?

ABBOTT: Margie has been an adornment to public life.

HADLEY: She is a fantastic woman. Let me go on record as saying that. I

think she is one of the best first ladies we've ever had.

ABBOTT: She did everything that was asked of her with grace and dignity
and look, Margie's never been, I suppose, a political partisan especially, she's
not an avid spouse if you like, but nevertheless she was a very supportive
spouse throughout all the ups and downs of my public life. She's coping OK
because

HADLEY: Has she said, get out to the Rural Fire Service, youre spending far
too much time under my feet at home, I've missed you for a couple of years,
but get out and do something?

ABBOTT: I've never been someone who just wanted to hang around and
smell the roses, that's never been my idea of a day well spent, but I did get
out and spend a day with the local brigade, my brigade the Davidson Rural
Fire Brigade. It was great to be with the boys. I haven't spent enough time
with them over the last six years. I suspect I might do surf patrol.

HADLEY: Not the budgie smugglers, wear some boardies?

ABBOTT: If the club swim is on, Im afraid boardies are just a drag, mate.

HADLEY: I understand that, but it appears to me that many people who don't
understand the surf-lifesaving movement in Australia it's the uniform as is the
cap, its just the way you are.

ABBOTT: Absolutely right. The idea of going in a surf race, a surf swim in
board shorts is just silly. Sure, put the boardies on for sun protection
purposes as well as for aesthetics once you're back on the beach, but when
you're in the water it's the Speedos, I'm afraid.

HADLEY: Let me say to you I was thinking last night and this morning about
talking to you. I was apprehensive, because I didn't know how you were
feeling personally. Ive emerged from the last 30 minutes or so really happy,
because despite what's happened over the past couple of weeks, you're in a
pretty good place?

ABBOTT: As I said at the beginning, it is an extraordinary honour to be the

Prime Minister of our country. In all the years since Federation there's
only been 29 and to be the 28th Prime Minister of this country - and we are
such an extraordinary place.

One of the highlights of my time was the G20 which was a diplomatic triumph,
an unparalleled diplomatic triumph for our country and I said afterwards, it is a
pity that we do not see ourselves the way the world sees us, because the
world looks at Australia and they think prosperous, free, fair, cohesive and
multicultural. Now how many other countries can boast that? We really are an
exemplar to the wider world in everything it seems except this extraordinary
and incomprehensible propensity to change our prime ministers like
we change our clothes.

HADLEY: Would you think that perhaps on reflection, and the things we've
enunciated here that you did, that the last thing you did was announcing in
concert with Peter Dutton and Scott Morrison, the 12,000 Syrian refugees
will be your greatest legacy as Prime Minister, or close to it?

ABBOTT: Well, there's 12,000 people who will be forever grateful for our
country and I am very confident that 12,000 genuine refugees from the Syrian
war zone from persecuted minorities, I am confident that they will make first
class Australian citizens in the fullness of time. Absolutely confident. But you
know Ray we could only do this because wed stopped the boats. If we
had the same chaos on our borders as the countries of Europe currently have
on their borders, if we still had people arriving in dangerous boats at the rate
of almost 5,000 a month, which was the peak arrivals in July of 2013,
we would never have been able to do this. So it was only because of the
success of the Government that we were able to make what I thought was a
marvellously magnanimous humanitarian gesture, but more than a gesture, a
sign that though we are far away, we do get it, and we are ready as always, to
bear the burdens of international citizenship.

HADLEY: You surprised everyone by the volume. You surprised

the Opposition, I was waiting for The Greens and Opposition to say "should
be 27,000" , but no-one was critical of it which means you hit the nail on
the head and all the doomsdayers that were talking about your policies when
you came to power, all of a sudden realised that Europe were looking at us for
solutions, because we'd solved problems?

ABBOTT: Exactly right. We had a terrific week in the Parliament that week
and I think as I said we were looking very good in Canning. But look these are
the chances of politics, you never know what's around the corner, good or bad
and as I said Ray, I am very conscious of the extraordinary honour that my
party and my country has done me.

HADLEY: Thank you for affording us so much time. Good luck in the future.
We'll talk again shortly.