One of the unintended consequences of Tony Abbott getting flayed by Zali Steggall and sensationally losing his seat of Warringah at the last Federal Election is that it hastened the arrival of Tony’s most potent form: Wistful old goose looking back on his career through loving, malbec-tinted glasses and whispering “good on me” any chance he can get.
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Take, for example, a recent interview with The Australian in which Toney pontificated about his time as Prime Minister and noted, among many other things, that he still believed introducing Knighthoods was a real top notch idea.
In a baffling diatribe that begins with Abbott claiming he never aspired to be Prime Minister and that he was an “accidental leader,” continues to blame Malcolm Turnbull for pretty much everything that went wrong with his own government, and of his own electoral defeated stated outright that he’d “rather be a loser than a quitter,” Abbott once again went into bat for his decision to reinstate Knighthoods in Australia; an infamous “Captain’s Pick” made without consultation from other MPs that went a fair amount of the way towards totally derailing his tilt in the country’s top job.
Abbott, benevolent as always, conceded that there was “absolutely no doubt that there were a couple of things that I did, particularly the restoration of knighthoods, which caused me a lot of grief,” showing some semblance of awareness that some of the stuff he did as PM was just a little bit bung.
‘Course then he followed that up by immediately doubling down, backing the return of the Knighthoods once again in spectacular Abbott fashion.
“If we are going to have an honours system (then) I think that at the apex of the system we should have knights and dames.”
Such a pure distillation of Abbottism that I’d be shocked if you couldn’t find that quote on the inside of a Peroni cap.
Under Abbott’s watch, Knight and Damehoods were handed out to precisely five people, among them two Governor-Generals who assumed the title automatically thanks to their office, and Prince Philip, the 98-year-old nearly dead royal husband who has so many titles that they have their own Wikipedia page.
No doubt about it: It’s always Toney Time somewhere in the world.
