Tony Abbott

Australia is cheering on Britain’s exciting new freedom from the EU

Britain’s departure from the EU is a historical watershed. As a big moment in geopolitics, it ranks with the fall of the Soviet Union. For decades, it had been assumed that the nation state would decrease in importance and that supra-national bodies, such as the EU and the UN, would become ever more relevant; just...
on February 1, 2020

Trump, the View from the Outside: Address to the Heritage Foundation

Back in November of 2014, when Australia hosted the annual meeting of the G20, it was by far the most important gathering of leaders ever held in my country; and it should have been a diplomatic triumph - but for President Barack Obama choosing to give a speech at the University of Queensland that was...
on January 21, 2020

Address to The Lowy Institute

Let’s begin with a question: who can recall Australian MPs being boycotted from an official delegation simply because they’d been critical of some aspect of that country’s policy?The fact that the Chinese government has chosen to refuse visas for Andrew Hastie and James Paterson, and demanded that they “repent”, no less, of their thought crimes...
on November 28, 2019

Address to India Foundation

Many years ago, I was lucky enough to win a scholarship to study overseas. I was tremendously exhilarated at the thought of studying at the world’s oldest English-speaking university and spending time in one of the cradles of Western civilisation – but some instinct said that I shouldn’t travel straight from Australia to England, and...
on November 18, 2019

Two halves of solidarity

First published in The Australian, 19 October 2019 The Liberal Party does best when it focuses on creating jobs, making people’s lives easier and fostering pride in our country, not when it debates its own philosophy. It’s true, as John Howard recently said, that you can’t persuade if you don’t believe. But the Liberal Party has...
on October 19, 2019

Remarks to Policy Exchange event at Conservative Party Conference

Conservative Party Conference, Manchester Well, Stephen, wonderful to have the chance to follow you and I should begin by saying that in your presentation just now, you’ve shown the strength and the clarity which made you an outstanding prime minister of a great country.Now, as you pointed out and as every conservative knows in the marrow...
on October 1, 2019

Spectator Australia Diary

First published in The Spectator Australia, 13 September 2019For the past three years, I had been looking to say something strong and substantial about Brexit. I first had a go at an Australian Chamber of Commerce event in London not long after the referendum, and then had a couple of pieces in The Spectator, but my...
on September 13, 2019

Address to Budapest Demographic Summit

In the long run, said John Maynard Keynes, we’re all dead, which perhaps explains why most of us worry much more about what’s happening tomorrow, or next week, than what might happen in ten years’ time, let alone in 50 years. Yet sometimes we really should have to focus on what’s important, rather than what’s...
on September 5, 2019

Address to the Danube Institute

The working title for these remarks is what Australia can teach Hungary on border protection. In fact, Australia has very little to teach Hungary on border protection. In fact, no country has much to teach Hungary on border protection. But Australia does have much to teach Europe on border protection – as does Hungary, which...
on September 4, 2019

September 2019 – Policy Exchange

The argument over leaving the European Union is Britain’s least civil and most seismic disagreement, at least since the Irish question, a century or so back, that shaved off part of the country and irrevocably split the Liberal Party. Yes, it is that serious.   Allow me, please, to make a declaration at the outset:...
on September 2, 2019