If I were to be asked which side of politics indulged in the practice of ‘playing the man, not the ball’, I’d reply that it’s a one-sided contest. The ‘right’ wins in a canter. By the ‘right’ I refer to not just the members of the Coalition but their supporters and the right-wing media.

I’m assured by many from the right that the left has its fair share of trolls, muggers and attack dogs, but I’m sorry, I can’t find them anywhere. At least not the places I frequent; the media – old and new.

The old media sets a bad example. Or I should say a good example of ‘playing the man (or woman)’. Some recent examples – of many available – come to mind.

• After Senator Conroy announced proposed changes to media laws, who did we see attacked? The laws or Senator Conroy? Conroy, of course, and it got personal when he was likened to one of history’s greatest mass murderers, Joseph Stalin. We saw little dissection or even debate on the policy or its implications. The best the media and the Opposition could do was attack Senator Conroy the most vile they could legally do.
• When refugees drowned off Christmas Island in 2010 who did we see attacked? Not the people smugglers, but Julia Gillard who according to one fanatical right-winged mouthpiece had blood on her hands. The attack was rabid.
• When four people tragically died providing home insulation under the Rudd Government’s Home insulation Program, who did the media blame? The Minister, Peter Garrett of course. Were they interested to seek answers of why or how these people died, or how future deaths could be prevented? No, they weren’t. They preferred to play the man.

It contrasts to how the left react. Take recently, when the Opposition released their NBN policy – the details I needn’t go into – it was not well-received. But who or what was attacked? The policy was. Nobody played the man; they played the ball. Sure, people made fun of it because after all, it was a dud. But can we really expect those of the right to play the ball when the man who oversees the demise of political integrity in this country, Tony Abbott, has turned ‘playing the man’ into an art form?

I used to think that John Howard was a mean-spirited, nasty piece of work, but in comparison to Tony Abbott he appears as kind, caring and compassionate as Mother Teresa.

Tony Abbott is far, far more mean-spirited. He demonstrates this in the way he ignores human misery and the way he belittles those who are suffering from it. He is, in a nutshell, nasty to the core.

Stories surface that he’s been inherently nasty for as long as people have known him, but it wasn’t until 2005 that I first took notice of his extreme level of nastiness and lack of compassion for human misery when it was hoisted onto the national stage. It came only hours after the NSW Leader of the Opposition, John Brogden, had attempted suicide. The Age reported at the time that:

The day after Mr Brogden was found unconscious in his electorate office with self-inflicted wounds, Mr Abbott publicly joked at two separate Liberal Party functions about the disgraced leader’s career-wrecking behaviour . . . Mr Abbott was asked at a fund-raising lunch about a particular health reform proposal and reportedly answered: “If we did that, we would be as dead as the former Liberal leader’s political prospects.”

Nasty. Even to a mate.

He also claimed that Bernie Banton was a mate. Not that he acted like one.

When Tony Abbott was the Minister for Health, the dying asbestos disease sufferer Bernie Banton obtained a petition containing 17,000 signatures of those who supported the listing of the mesothelioma drug Alimta on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. This petition was to be presented in person to Tony Abbott. If it wasn’t disrespectful enough to snub the petition, then his verbal response certainly was.

Yesterday, Mr Abbott was quick to dismiss the petition.  “It was a stunt,” Mr Abbott said on the Nine Network.

“I know Bernie is very sick, but just because a person is sick doesn’t necessarily mean that he is pure of heart in all things.”

He loves making fun of dying people. Does he expect we’ll all laugh along with him?

He even has a go at deceased people. Margaret Whitlam wasn’t even in the grave before Tony Abbott used her death to score cheap political points.

The death of Margaret Whitlam caused such an outpouring of saddened fondness that comments by the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, linking her passing with the sins of the Whitlam government appear to have struck an extremely wrong note.

He said she was a ”woman of style and substance” and ”a marvellous consort to a very significant Labor leader and an epochal Australian prime minister”.

”There was a lot wrong with the Whitlam government but nevertheless, it was a very significant episode in our history and Margaret Whitlam was a very significant element in the political success of Gough Whitlam,” Mr Abbott said.

Nasty. As always. Just another person to mug.

And let’s not forget the role he played in the jailing of Pauline Hanson. After One Nation shocked the Coalition by winning 11 seats in Queensland in June 1998, Abbott was determined to dig up every piece of dirt he could on Hanson. In his own words, on her demise he boasts this was:

“All my doing, for better or for worse. It has got Tony Abbott’s fingerprints on it and no-one else’s.”

His nastiness is contagious to the Liberal Party and many of its members, supporters and the adoring media have been affected under his leadership. It is a point that I and many others have expressed, but I do like what Dave Horton has to say in summary:

In effect all shock jocks and populist politicians are painting targets on people who do not share their views. In Australia the people who said the Prime Minister was a “witch” or a “cheap prostitute whoring herself” who should be “drowned in a sack” or “kicked to death” were inviting violence in a way that should not be permitted in a civilised society whether applied to the prime minister or the unfortunate woman who was the partner of Car Park Man.

Bullying, in home, school, workplace is rightly taken very seriously these days. And it is clearly recognised that verbal bullying can cause as much distress and psychological damage as physical actions.

Yet we facilitate, protect, applaud, the bullying and incitement to bullying that takes place every day in out media. Target after target of helpless and/or vulnerable groups (Aborigines, gays, single mothers, unemployed, refugees, public housing tenants, environmentalists, unions) are chosen day after day by bully boy and bully girl shock jocks and politicians. And day after day there are attempts by the same people to denigrate, delegitimise, degrade, political and philosophical opponents. Day after day words are twisted, lies told, rage consequently incited.

And oh how that nastiness has filtered down into our media, old and new. If you need any further evidence of how nasty the right are then feast your eyes upon these two disgusting videos, courtesy of the rabid, vile right-wing shock jocks at 2GB:

Do you see or hear that type of media trash from the left?

Last night I had the displeasure of witnessing such pathetic behaviour on social media.

We are often asked here why we only preach to the converted. I can assure people that we don’t. All of our articles are posted on Facebook sites, for example, where left/right followers have the opportunity to debate the articles. John Lord did this last night, and he was immediately subject to a barrage of personal attacks bordering on defamatory. I checked the profiles of those playing the man, and surprise surprise, they boasted on their Facebook pages as being Tony Abbott or LNP supporters. Not one of them showed any commitment to discussing the topic at hand, unlike the left supporters on the site.

It was pure filth. He was verbally mugged.

It’s their style. Play the man, not the ball. And when you catch him, make sure he gets a good mugging.

By @Thefinnigans
April 1, 2013

MARGO: @TheFinnigans is a friend from Webdiary days, and he’s been a serious supporter of my return to journalism for a while. He says he compiled this list of  what he feels are some of Tony Abbott’s character questions in honour of my first venture back unto political writing for many years, A question of character. Thanks, Finnie, for everything. His first list for @NoFibs, published in She’s still standing but the media is blind, is our most popular post.

Tony Abbott, 29/11/2012 – on PM Gillard: ‘She had been a dodgy and unethical lawyer. The criticism was not about gender; she had failed the character test’.

Susan Mitchell – Tony Abbott is a bully who hates women, and his outdated social views are a threat to national cohesion and plurality, according to a polemical new book. In Tony Abbott: A Man’s Man, academic and writer Susan Mitchell attempts to deconstruct the Opposition Leader’s beliefs and character so that Australians ‘think again’ about the man who came within a whisker of forming government after last year’s general election.

David Marr – Oct 10, 2012 – David Marr talks to The Global Mail’s Mike Seccombe about his Quarterly Essay Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott. Tony Abbott’s values are old fashion rock solid 1950s Catholicism, that essentially it. He is essentially an old fashioned Catholic.

Laurie Oakes: Tony Abbott has a credibility issue – LET’s not beat about the bush. Tony Abbott tells lies. So what? Is there anything surprising about that? After all, he’s a politician. But it needs to be pointed out because the central message from Abbott supporters is that the Prime Minister is the liar – Ju-liar, in fact, according to the likes of Alan Jones. The Opposition Leader is portrayed – and portrays himself – as the epitome of honesty. A man whose word can always be trusted.

Tony Abbott’s Character:

00/00/1976 – Tony Abbott kicked in a glass panel door after a narrow defeat in the University Senate elections in 1976.

00/00/1977 – He came up to within an inch of my nose and punched the wall on either side of my head … It was done to intimidate (Barbara Ramjan)

00/00/1977 – Abbott’s famous flying squad of goons crashed down the stairs, threw me against the wall, kicked in the doors of the SRC, and started creating havoc

00/00/1977 – Confess to calling Barbara Ramjan a “chairthing” rather than chairperson

00/00/1977 – Lawyer David Patch: ‘Tony used to stand outside the women’s room with his right-wing mates and loudly tell sexist and homophobic jokes’.

00/00/1978 – Abbott allegedly throwing a punch and hitting Peter Woof at Sydney University

00/00/1978 – Was allegedly caught doing unethical or perhaps illegal things like changing the locks on the student union offices and other things

00/01/1978 – Charged with indecent assault of Helen Elizabeth Wilson

00/00/1979 – Lindsay Foyle: He decided the quickest way to settle our differences was to take me downstairs and demonstrate how I was wrong by punching my head in

16/10/1995 – Euthanasia is not about the right to die; it is about the right to kill

00/00/1997 – Father Nestor (convicted pedophile) – He was . . a beacon of humanity at the seminary

00/00/1998 – If it’s true … that men have more power, generally speaking, than women, is that a bad thing?

00/00/1998 – But what if men by philosophy or temperament are more adapted to exercise authority or to issue command?”

10/08/1998 – So there was never any question of any party fund being offered to Terry Sharples? Abbott:Absolutely not.

24/06/2000 – Tony Abbott was thrown out of Parliament because he moved in a threatening manner towards the Opposition benches just after Labor’s Graham Edwards, a legless Vietnam Veteran, had interjected: ‘You’re a disgrace’.

02/07/2002 – A bad boss is a little bit like a bad father or husband … you find that he tends to do more good than harm.

22/07/2002 – Compulsory paid maternity leave: over this Government’s dead body, frankly. It just won’t happen (see 01/08/2010 )

17/03/2004 – Abortion has been reduced to a question of the mother’s convenience

17/03/2004 – Abortion is the easy way out

06/09/2004 – Will this Govt commit to keeping the Medicare+safety-net as it is now in place after the election? Abbott:Yes.

06/09/2004 – That’s a cast-iron commitment? Abbott:Cast-iron commitment. Absolutely.

00/00/2005 – I want to make it clear that I do not judge or condemn any woman who has had an abortion, but every abortion is a tragedy and up to 100,000 abortions a year is this generation’s legacy of unutterable shame

12/06/2005 – You don’t have to be a Catholic to be troubled by the current abortion culture

31/08/2005 – If we did that we would be as dead as the former Liberal leader’s political prospects (John Brogden)

15/11/2005 – I conclude that there is no reason, based on the report from the Chief Medical Officer, to change longstanding practice in regards to RU-486.

30/10/2007 – Just because a person is sick doesn’t necessarily mean that he is pure of heart in all things (Bernie Banton)

31/07/2007 – That’s bullshit. You’re being deliberately unpleasant. I suppose you can’t help yourself, can you? (Nicola Roxon)

19/03/2009 – Adopt a sort of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy about homosexuals in the Catholic church

27/07/2009 – I am, as you know, hugely unconvinced by the so-called settled science on climate change.

27/07/2009 – It was, after all, the mechanism for ETS ultimately chosen by the Howard Govt

29/07/2009 – I also think that if you want to put a price on carbon, why not just do it with a simple tax?

21/12/2009 – I regard myself as an environmentalist

21/01/2010 – I’ll turn back every boat

27/01/2010 – I would say to my daughters if they were to ask me this question, their virginity is the greatest gift

02/02/2010 – The climate change argument is absolute crap

08/02/2010 – What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing

11/02/2010 – We just can’t stop people from being homeless if that’s their choice

20/02/2010 – I don’t bring religion into the square the way Rudd did and does. I am Catholic.

20/02/2010 – Yeah, look, I don’t regard myself as God’s gift to politics

08/03/2010 – There is no doubt that homosexuality challenges, if you like, orthodox notions of the right order of things

15/03/2010 – I think it would be folly to expect that women will ever dominate or even approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons

15/03/2010 – Western civilisation came to this country in 1788 and I’m proud of that

07/03/2010 – Homosexuality? How do you feel about that? Abbott:I’d probably feel a bit threatened

15/03/2010 – we can’t stop people from making mistakes that cause them to be less well-off than they might otherwise be

05/04/2010 – Jesus knew that there was a place for everything and it’s not necessarily everyone’s place to come to Australia

05/04/2010 – ‘Now, I know that there are some Aboriginal people who aren’t happy with Australia Day. For them it remains Invasion Day. I think a better view is the view of Noel Pearson, who has said that Aboriginal people have much to celebrate in this country’s British Heritage.’

17/05/2010 – I know politicians are gonna be judged on everything they say, but sometimes, in the heat of discussion, you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark, which is one of the reasons why the statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth is those carefully prepared scripted remarks.

23/06/2010 – Victory is within our ready grasp…We are in reach of a famous victory

30/06/2010 – There may not be a great job for Aboriginal people.. if it’s picking up rubbish… it just has to be done

19/07/2010 – WorkChoices is dead, it’s buried, it’s cremated

26/07/2010 – I think I certainly get women, but, obviously, I’ve got some marketing to do

01/08/2010 – On paid parental leave, over your dead body? Abbott:I did change my mind on this issue (see: 22/07/2002)

03/08/2010 – Are you suggesting to me that when it comes from Julia, ‘No’ doesn’t mean ‘No’

10/08/2010 – I’ve always been very wary of debates involving women

28/09/2010 – I congratulate the member for Fisher, who has been a friend of mine for a very long time (as deputy Speaker)

20/12/2010 – Do we really want to invest $50B (NBN)…. in what is essentially a video entertainment system?

08/02/2011 – Mr Abbott saying “sometimes shit happens” after being told of the circumstances of Lance Corporal Jared MacKinney’s death when he was in Afghanistan last year.

24/02/2011 – If the Prime Minister wants to, politically speaking, make an honest woman of herself

27/04/2011 – Whyalla will be wiped off the map by Julia Gillard’s carbon tax.

28/05/2011 – I last described myself as the political lovechild of John Howard and Bronwyn Bishop

09/01/2012 – Well, that was one boat (Costa Concordia) that did get stopped, wasn’t it?

17/03/2012 – On behalf of the Coalition, I offer my deep condolences to Gough Whitlam on the passing of Margaret… There was a lot wrong with the Whitlam government, but nevertheless it was a very significant episode in our history.

22/03/2012 – Walking around with targets on their (PM & Albo) foreheads

22/03/2012 – Their baseball bats aren’t there for Anna Bligh, they’re there for this Prime Minister

27/04/2012 – We take as dim a view of Indonesian boats disgorging illegal arrivals in Aust as they take of Aust importing drugs into Bali.

18/05/2012 – The carbon tax is socialism masquerading as environmentalism

29/05/2012 – Gillard won’t lie down and die, and where there’s life, there’s fight.

09/07/2012 – I don’t think it’s a very Christian thing to come in by the back door rather than the front door

15/09/2012 – I have no recollection of it – because it didn’t happen (On Barbara Ramjan incident)

24/09/2012 – PM should not be “swanning” around in New York “talking to Africans”, rather she should be in Jakarta talking to SBY

09/10/2012 – Another day of shame for a government which should already have died of shame

23/10/2012 – Lack of experience within the Government of raising children

10/11/2012 – Ken Wyatt: an urban Aboriginal, he’s not a man of culture

21/11/2012 – The people who have come illegally to this country need to know that they are breaking our laws

22/11/2012 – You will never find from me any attempt to invoke the gender war against my political opponents

22/11/2012 – Now, one thing I will never do.. is deliberately set out to divide Australian against Australian

24/11/2012 – Gillard will be grilled

26/01/2013 – The first lot of Australians were chosen by the finest judges in England

10/03/2013 – Yes I can. Faith is important to me… but it must never, never shape my politics.

28/03/2013 – Five wasted years; after five years when our country has stood still

06/05/2013 – “We do not educate women to higher degree level to deny them a career, if we want women of that calibre to have families, and we should”

An Abbott in the Lodge – Never

A guest post by John Lord 19/1/2013.

David Marr’s quarterly essay “Political Animal” gives an engrossing, even gripping insight into the persona of the leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott. I made many observations as I read it and I cannot of course comment on everything. I must say though (given Tony Abbot’s statement that he finds gays intimidating) that I was a little bemused at how Marr even got to interview him. They apparently spent some time together which must have been excruciatingly uncomfortable for the Opposition leader. And given that Mr Abbott only allowed him to use one quote I should think he probably wasted his time. Another thing that took my attention was the influence of Catholicism in his private and political decision making. He apparently finds it difficult to make decisions without referral to his faith.

What did catch my eye was this short paragraph: “Josh Gordon of the Sunday Age saw the parallels early. Like the Republicans in the US the Coalition’s new strategy appears to be to block, discredit, confuse, attack and hamper at every opportunity.” Do we see any similarities here? Well of course. On a daily basis the negativity of Abbott spreads like rust through the community. He seeks to confuse with the most outlandish statements. Hardly a day passes without referring to the Prime minister as a liar while at the same time telling the most outrageous ones himself. And with a straight face I might add. He seeks to hamper (as do the Republicans) all legislation with a pre-determined NO. Often without even reading it. Abbott has (as have Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan) taken lying and the frequency of it to a level in political discourse we have never experienced.

In the US the Republicans with all this propaganda have sought to create a fictional President who is the opposite to the one known outside the States. Twenty five per cent of the population still believe he is a Muslim and a large percentage still believe he was born outside the States even though the facts prove otherwise. Such is the power of the right-wing media (Fox News) and an accumulation of feral shock jocks. The GOP (the Republicans – the “Grand Old Party”) is even accused of deliberately not passing bills in order to make the economy worse.

In Australia, for two years the Prime Minister has been demonised by a right wing (Murdoch) news media pack intent on creating a false profile and bringing her down at the first opportunity. She has had thrown at her the most vile misogynist ravings un-befitting of the fourth estate but the tabloids and the shock jocks seem to thrive on it.

At this point (since we are talking in part about truth) let me say that I would describe myself as progressive social democrat. Centre-left on some issues and further left on others. I confess this so as not to be accused later of any preconceived bias. I am the originator of this quote “to be a true democrat one has to concede that your opponents have as much right to win as does your side”; I wrote that prior to the advent of this nefarious thing called neo conservatism or neo capitalism. I wrote it at a time when the political divide (despite the ideological differences) had some respect for the common good; when we in Australia admired America’s bi-partisan approach to its politics. The decline of bi-partisan politics and the rise of neo conservatism can be traced back to a third rate actor and a women with a bad hair-do. And in time respect for public office has gone out the window.

Regardless of what political persuasion you are I believe we like to see character in our leaders. Now how do we describe character. I came across this in the New York Times; it is a direct reference to Mitt Romney, however, it suffices as a general observation:

“Character is a combination of traits that etch the outlines of a life, governing moral choices and infusing personal and professional conduct. It’s an elusive thing, easily cloaked or submerged by the theatrics of a presidential campaign, but unexpected moments can sometimes reveal the fibers from which it is woven.”

When looked in isolation the lies and indiscretions of Tony Abbott, his problems with women and even his negativity could perhaps all be written off as just Tony being Tony. Or that’s just politics. However my focus here is on character and whether Mr Abbott has enough of it to be the leader of our nation. My contention is that because we are looking at a litany of instances of lying, deception and bad behaviour over a long period of time he simply doesn’t have the essence of character which is one of the main ingredients in the recipe of leadership.

The evidence for this assertion follows. None of these events are in chronological order. They are just as they come to mind and are listed randomly in order to build a character profile.

When the President of the US visited he broke long standing conventions by politicising his speech as Opposition leader.

He did the same when the Indonesian president visited.

He did the same when the Queen visited.

He would not allow pairs (another long standing convention) so that the Minister for the Arts could attend the funeral of painter Margaret Olley; an Australian icon. Malcolm Turnbull, a personnel friend was also prevented from attending. There have been other instances of not allowing pairs.

More recently he refused a pair whilst the Prime Minister was on bereavement leave following the death of her father.

At university he kicked in a glass panel door when defeated in an election.

Referred to a women Chairperson as “Chairthing”.

He was accused of assaulting a women at university and later acquitted. He was defended by a QC and the girl defended herself.

Another women accuses him of throwing punches at her. And hitting either side of a wall she was standing against. He says it never happened but others corroborated her story.

He threatens to punch the head in of Lindsay Foyle who disagreed with him on a women’s right to an abortion.

In 1978 a young teacher by the name of Peter Woof bought assault charges against Abbott. He punched him in the face. It never went anywhere. Abbott was represented by a legal team of six and the young man could not afford to defend himself.

And he did punch out Joe Hockey’s lights during a rugby match? Yes, he did.

He established a slush fund to bring down Pauline Hansen and then lied about its existence.

And let’s not forget the role he played also in the jailing of Pauline Hanson. After One Nation shocked the Coalition by winning 11 seats in Queensland in June 1998, Abbott was determined to dig up every piece of dirt he could on Hanson. In his own words, on her demise he boasts this was:

“All my doing, for better or for worse. It has got Tony Abbott’s fingerprints on it and no-one else’s.”

Yes, even after saying that, he still lies about its existence.

He was ejected from the House of Representatives once in obscure circumstances. Hansard is unclear why but it is alleged that he physically threatened Graham Edwards. Edwards lost both his legs in Vietnam.

In 2000 he was ejected from the House along with six others. Philip Coorey reports that he was headed toward the Labor back benches ready to thump a member who had heckled him.

Abused Nicola Roxon after he had turned up late for a debate.

Then there was the interview with Mark Riley where he had a brain fade that seemed like it would never end. I thought he was deciding between a right hook or a left cross. Something that I found mentally disturbing and worrying at the same time. After all this was the man who could be our next Prime Minister.

Together with Christopher Pyne seen running from the House of Representatives to avoid embarrassment at being outwitted.

Being the first Opposition leader to be ejected from the house in 26 years because he repeated an accusation of lying after withdrawing it.

The infamous “Sell my arse” statement verified by Tony Windsor. Will Windsor ever release the mobile phone transcript?

The interview with Kerry O’Brien where he admitted that unless it was in writing he didn’t always tell the truth.

And in another O’Brien interview he admitted lying about a meeting with the Catholic Archbishop George Pell.

During the Republic Referendum he told many outrageous untruths.

His famous “Climate change is crap” comment and later saying that he was speaking to an audience. This of course elicited the question: “Is that what you always do?”

His almost daily visits to businesses with messages of gloom and doom about the ‘carbon tax’ (a scare campaign best described as fraudulent). None of which have come to fruition. His blatant lying often repudiated by the management of the businesses. The most notable being the CEO of BHP and their decision not to proceed with the Olympic Dam mine. Whole towns being closed down. Industries being forced to sack thousands. The end of the coal industry etc.

And of course there is the now infamous Leigh Sales interview where beyond any doubt he lied three times and continued to do so in Parliament the next day.

Then there was his statement that the Aboriginal Tent Embassy near Old Parliament House be closed. To call his statement an error in judgement is too kind. It almost sounded like an incitement to riot.

He is quoted as saying in the Parliament that Prime Minister Gillard and Minister Albanese had targets on their heads. He later apologised.

And of course there is also the lie about asylum seekers being illegal.

Added to that is his statement that the PM refused to lay down and die.

And the deliberate lie he told to the Australian Minerals Council that the Chinese intended increasing their emissions by 500 per cent.

I think I have exhausted it all but I cannot be sure. Oh wait.

We should not leave out his insensitive comments about the attempted suicide of John Brogden. I used to think that John Howard was a mean-spirited, nasty piece of work, but in comparison to Tony Abbott he appears as kind, caring and compassionate as Mother Teresa. Tony Abbott is far, far more mean-spirited. He demonstrates this in the way he ignores human misery and the way he belittles those who are suffering from it. He is, in a nutshell, nasty to the core. Stories surface that he’s been inherently nasty for as long as people have known him, but it wasn’t until 2005 that I first took notice of his extreme level of nastiness and lack of compassion for human misery when it was hoisted onto the national stage. It came only hours after the NSW Leader of the Opposition, John Brogden, had attempted suicide. The Age reported at the time that:

The day after Mr Brogden was found unconscious in his electorate office with self-inflicted wounds, Mr Abbott publicly joked at two separate Liberal Party functions about the disgraced leader’s career-wrecking behaviour . . . Mr Abbott was asked at a fund-raising lunch about a particular health reform proposal and reportedly answered: “If we did that, we would be as dead as the former Liberal leader’s political prospects.”

Nasty. To the core. And to a mate.

He also claimed that Bernie Banton was a mate. Not that he acted like one.

When Abbott was the Minister for Health, the dying asbestos disease sufferer Bernie Banton obtained a petition containing 17,000 signatures of those who supported the listing of the mesothelioma drug Alimta on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. This petition was to be presented in person to Tony Abbott. If it wasn’t disrespectful enough to snub the petition, then his verbal response certainly was.

Yesterday, Mr Abbott was quick to dismiss the petition.  “It was a stunt,” Mr Abbott said on the Nine Network.

“I know Bernie is very sick, but just because a person is sick doesn’t necessarily mean that he is pure of heart in all things.”

He loves making fun of dying people. Does he expect we’ll all laugh along with him?

He even has a go at deceased people. Margaret Whitlam wasn’t even in the grave before Tony Abbott used her death to score cheap political points.

The death of Margaret Whitlam caused such an outpouring of saddened fondness that comments by the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, linking her passing with the sins of the Whitlam government appear to have struck an extremely wrong note.

He said she was a ”woman of style and substance” and ”a marvellous consort to a very significant Labor leader and an epochal Australian prime minister”.

”There was a lot wrong with the Whitlam Government but nevertheless, it was a very significant episode in our history and Margaret Whitlam was a very significant element in the political success of Gough Whitlam,” Mr Abbott said.

Nasty. To the core.

If politics is fundamentally about ideas it is also about leadership. In this piece I have deliberately steered clear of policy argument in order to concentrate on character. On three occasions I have invited people on Facebook to list five attributes of Tony Abbott that would warrant his election as Prime Minister of Australia. I have never received a reply. And when you look at the aforementioned list is it any wonder. He is simply bereft of any character at all. He has been described as the Mad Monk and many other things but essentially he is a repugnant gutter politician of the worst kind. In following the American Republican party’s example his shock and awe tactics associated with perpetual crisis has done nothing but degenerate the standard of Australian politics and the Parliament generally. In the public eye he is most effective in attack dog mode. However he is found wanting when he needs to defend himself and simply reverts to stuttering hesitation and lies. Or just walking out on press conferences when he stumbles over tough questions. This is particularly noticeable when he tries to explain the complexity of policy detail.

The future of this country is of vital importance. So much so that its leadership should never be entrusted to a politician of such little virtue and character. A man who has failed to articulate a narrative for Australia’s future other than a personal desire to occupy The Lodge. Given his performance of late he would do well to consider these words: Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. It’s easy to understand what Abbott says because he only speaks in slogans. The difficulty is knowing what he means.

I have used this line in one of my short stories and it aptly sums up the character of Honourable Leader of Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition.

As he spoke, truth came from the beginning of a smile or was it just a sneer of deception.

Please note, this was written prior to the Prime Minister’s now famous ‘sexist speech’ and does not include these snippets of Tonyisms.

His dying of shame comment.

His “lack of experience in raising children” comment.

His “make an honest women of herself ” comment.

His “no doesn’t mean no” comment.

1. “Jesus knew that there was a place for everything and it’s not necessarily everyone’s place to come to Australia.”

2. “These people aren’t so much seeking asylum, they’re seeking permanent residency. If they were happy with temporary protection visas, then they might be able to argue better that they were asylum seekers”.

On rights at work:

3. “If we’re honest, most of us would accept that a bad boss is a little bit like a bad father or a bad husband . . . you find that he tends to do more good than harm. He might be a bad boss but at least he’s employing someone while he is in fact a boss”.

On women:

4. “The problem with the Australian practice of abortion is that an objectively grave matter has been reduced to a question of the mother’s convenience”.

5. “I think it would be folly to expect that women will ever dominate or even approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons”.

6. “I think there does need to be give and take on both sides, and this idea that sex is kind of a woman’s right to absolutely withhold, just as the idea that sex is a man’s right to demand I think they are both they both need to be moderated, so to speak”.

7. “What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it’s going to go up in price and their own power bills when they switch the iron on are going to go up, every year . . .”

On Julia Gillard:

8. “Gillard won’t lie down and die”.

On climate change:

9. “Climate change is absolute crap”.

10. “If you want to put a price on carbon why not just do it with a simple tax”.

On homosexuality:

11. “I’d probably . . . I feel a bit threatened”.

12. “If you’d asked me for advice I would have said to have – adopt a sort of “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about all of these things . . . “

On Indigenous Australia:

13. “Now, I know that there are some Aboriginal people who aren’t happy with Australia Day. For them it remains Invasion Day. I think a better view is the view of Noel Pearson, who has said that Aboriginal people have much to celebrate in this country’s British Heritage”.

14. ‘”Western civilisation came to this country in 1788 and I’m proud of that . . .”

15. “There may not be a great job for them but whatever there is, they just have to do it, and if it’s picking up rubbish around the community, it just has to be done”.

On Nicola Roxon:

16: “That’s bullshit. You’re being deliberately unpleasant. I suppose you can’t help yourself, can you?”

I could go on. History is filled with examples of how low this man is; of how nasty he is.

I fear that we may not yet have seen the full extent of his nastiness. We might have to wait – God forbid – for the day he ever becomes Prime Minister.

It’ll be nasty for all of us.

After he died I redid the cartoon in colour as a tribute and it appeared in the Newcastle Herald. The family requested the new version and it was used as a feature at Bernie’s funeral.

It’s been five years since Bernie Banton died, but still Australia has one of the highest rates of asbestos related diseases in the world and has also been ranked among the top consumers of asbestos cement products per capita.

This week is National Asbestos Awareness Week and Australian television personality and author, Don Burke,  an ambassador for the cause, explained it to Angus Randall.

Download Interview

Producer: Kristen Theologou

Catherine Zengerer caught up with Matt Peacock, who told her how he was feeling about the book coming to life in Devil’s Dust.

Matt Peacock, including his book, can be found here.

Devil’s Dust can be viewed on ABC1 on Sunday November 11 at 8:30pm, or go to abc.net.au/tv/devilsdust.

I used to think that John Howard was a mean-spirited, nasty piece of work, but in comparison to Tony Abbott he appears as kind, caring and compassionate as Mother Teresa.

Tony Abbott is far, far more mean-spirited. He demonstrates this in the way he ignores human misery and the way he belittles those who are suffering from it. He is, in a nutshell, nasty to the core.

Stories surface that he’s been inherently nasty for as long as people have known him, but it wasn’t until 2005 that I first took notice of his extreme level of nastiness and lack of compassion for human misery when it was hoisted onto the national stage. It came only hours after the NSW Leader of the Opposition, John Brogden, had attempted suicide. The Age reported at the time that:

The day after Mr Brogden was found unconscious in his electorate office with self-inflicted wounds, Mr Abbott publicly joked at two separate Liberal Party functions about the disgraced leader’s career-wrecking behaviour . . . Mr Abbott was asked at a fund-raising lunch about a particular health reform proposal and reportedly answered: “If we did that, we would be as dead as the former Liberal leader’s political prospects.”

Nasty. To the core. And to a mate.

He also claimed that Bernie Banton was a mate. Not that he acted like one.

When Tony Abbott was the Minister for Health, the dying asbestos disease sufferer Bernie Banton obtained a petition containing 17,000 signatures of those who supported the listing of the mesothelioma drug Alimta on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. This petition was to be presented in person to Tony Abbott. If it wasn’t disrespectful enough to snub the petition, then his verbal response certainly was.

Yesterday, Mr Abbott was quick to dismiss the petition.  “It was a stunt,” Mr Abbott said on the Nine Network.

“I know Bernie is very sick, but just because a person is sick doesn’t necessarily mean that he is pure of heart in all things.”

He loves making fun of dying people. Does he expect we’ll all laugh along with him?

He even has a go at deceased people. Margaret Whitlam wasn’t even in the grave before Tony Abbott used her death to score cheap political points.

The death of Margaret Whitlam caused such an outpouring of saddened fondness that comments by the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, linking her passing with the sins of the Whitlam government appear to have struck an extremely wrong note.

He said she was a ”woman of style and substance” and ”a marvellous consort to a very significant Labor leader and an epochal Australian prime minister”.

”There was a lot wrong with the Whitlam government but nevertheless, it was a very significant episode in our history and Margaret Whitlam was a very significant element in the political success of Gough Whitlam,” Mr Abbott said.

Nasty. To the core.

And let’s not forget the role he played in the jailing of Pauline Hanson. After One Nation shocked the Coalition by winning 11 seats in Queensland in June 1998, Abbott was determined to dig up every piece of dirt he could on Hanson. In his own words, on her demise he boasts this was:

“All my doing, for better or for worse. It has got Tony Abbott’s fingerprints on it and no-one else’s.”

His nastiness is contagious to the Liberal Party and many of its members and supporters have been affected under his leadership. It is a point that I and many others have expressed, but I do like what Dave Horton has to say in summary:

In effect all shock jocks and populist politicians are painting targets on people who do not share their views. In Australia the people who said the Prime Minister was a “witch” or a “cheap prostitute whoring herself” who should be “drowned in a sack” or “kicked to death” were inviting violence in a way that should not be permitted in a civilised society whether applied to the prime minister or the unfortunate woman who was the partner of Car Park Man.

Bullying, in home, school, workplace is rightly taken very seriously these days. And it is clearly recognised that verbal bullying can cause as much distress and psychological damage as physical actions.

Yet we facilitate, protect, applaud, the bullying and incitement to bullying that takes place every day in out media. Target after target of helpless and/or vulnerable groups (Aborigines, gays, single mothers, unemployed, refugees, public housing tenants, environmentalists, unions) are chosen day after day by bully boy and bully girl shock jocks and politicians. And day after day there are attempts by the same people to denigrate, delegitimise, degrade, political and philosophical opponents. Day after day words are twisted, lies told, rage consequently incited.

I could go on. History is filled with examples of how low this man is; of how nasty he is. And to the core. But I want you good people to have a say too.

I fear that we may not yet have seen the full extent of his nastiness. We might have to wait – God forbid – for the day he ever becomes Prime Minister.

It’ll be nasty for all of us. To our core.

               (Photo courtesy of news.com.au)

Toby on location on Devil’s Dust with director Jessica Hobbs (photo Matt Temple)

May 2012 - Toby completes production shooting on the ABC TV 2-part mini-series Devil’s Dust, for Fremantle Media, producer Antonia Barnard and director Jessica Hobbs. Spanning periods from the 1970’s to the 2000’s, this political thriller deals with the tragic story of asbestos victim Bernie Banton and his courageous fight against James Hardie Industries. Starring acclaimed Australian actors Ewan Leslie, Anthony Hayes, Don Hany and Alexandra Schepisi.

This a re-post from Catherine Zengerer’s interview with Matt Peacock.

We should also remember Tony Abbott’s comment that Bernie Banton was “faking it”.

The world’s first dedicated asbestos research centre is named after long-time anti-asbestos campaigner Bernie Banton, who succumbed to mesothelioma in late 2007. Mr Banton was a key advocate for workers in the fight waged by unions against the James Hardie company, which attempted to avoid its legal and moral responsibilities to asbestos sufferers by deliberately moving assets worth US$1.3 billion from Australia to the Netherlands and out of legal reach from claims for compensation.

After a six year battle, James Hardie shareholders approved a $4 billion compensation deal in February 2007. AMWU National President Julius Roe said the role of the new centre needed to extend beyond Australia. “The opening of this centre is a victory for IMF Affiliates and other unions in our campaign for a global ban on asbestos. “Unfortunately, workers all over the world continue to be exposed to asbestos every day. “Despite a national ban and estimates that that over 50,000 Australians will contract asbestos-related disease by the year 2020, the Australian Defence Force continues to use the deadly substance. “There is no ban at all across most of Asia and producers in Canada and Russia are pushing for greater use of asbestos.

“The AMWU want to work with other IMF Affiliates to ensure the work of the Bernie Banton Centre is of benefit for all workers in our region.” The AMWU will attend the Asian Asbestos Congress in Hong Kong in April and call for the establishment of an Asian Network of clinicians, researchers, unions and victim support groups to promote research, prevention and treatment of asbestos related diseases.

Read more at:

http://www.imfmetal.org

John Howard.
Lost his seat after a long battle. It was Australia’s most dysfunctional election to date with both major parties seeming to be on the same side. Some people will miss Howard, some will wonder what’s missing but not be able to put their finger on it, and some will spend lots of time harassing the ears of others on how they won’t miss him at all. For many years Howard managed to lie to the people of Australia and get away with it when so many other politicians were scuppered on their own words. I think people grew weary somewhere along the way.

Bernie Banton.
Lost his life after a long battle. It was a war fought on two fronts – his own failing health and his relentless pursuit of the James Hardie Corporation. Bernie became one of Australia’s famous faces over the years. His determination to see proper compensation from JH caused them to skip the country and set up overseas. Bernie’s brother was one of JH’s victims a few years ago, as were most of the men with whom he worked in the asbestos industry. A state funeral will honour him for the integrity that he forced upon a corporation which fought him every step of the way.

I am so sad that it had to be this way for Bernie – a dignified, decent, good man; at the mercy of a corporation who admitted far too late it was exposing its workers to unsafe conditions, abandoning him to a painful fate most of us couldn’t even begin to imagine.

A journalist on the radio today described Bernie’s cancer and the treatment regime he had to follow as “ghastly.” In reality the awfulness of his condition was almost indescribable. Yet he continued to actively campaign for the rights of his fellow sufferers. A few days ago he said:

“What a wonderful opportunity I’ve had to fight for all the victims and their families.”

I am convinced that Bernie Banton was an angel living here on earth. It is rare to come across a human being who possessed such an unflinching sense of grace. He is to have a State Funeral which will take place next week. It is not everyday that a man like him comes along. He will always be remembered. His remarkable spirit in the face of such adversity is summed up best by Helen Keller:

” I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do.”

Goodbye, Bernie. Rest peacefully…….