Ousted PM urges voters to choose anti-immigrant party
POLITICIANS BETTER SECOND TIME AROUND, ABBOTT SAYS OF CONTROVERSIAL HANSON
Tony Abbott has declared that politicians are “always better” the second time around and says the Coalition ought to preference One Nation at the next election ahead of Labor and the Greens.
He said the Turnbull government needed to “face up to the reality” that “the only way” it would win the next election was with One Nation preferences.
“If I can make that more likely, that is a very positive contribution that I can make to the prospects of the Turnbull government,” he said.
Speaking at the launch of Pauline Hanson’s new book of speeches in Parliament House, the former prime minister said he and Hanson had much in common, both having spent time in the political wilderness and having grown stronger from the experience.
Immigration issue
He said her views should not have been dismissed so readily in the years since she was first elected.
“If, over the last two decades, we had been more ready to heed the message of people like Pauline Hanson and less quick to shoot the messenger, I think we would be a better country today,” Abbott said.
He said that, in the late 1990s, Hanson was an angry voice in parliament, who was damaging the Howard government, but since returning as a senator in the 2016 election she had worked constructively with the Coalition government.
Hanson had helped this Senate be “so much better than the last one” when he was prime minister, he said, and One Nation had allowed the current Turnbull government to implement its agenda.
“If I may say so, Pauline, adversity has made you a better, deeper person and you are certainly confirmation of that adage that you are always better the second time around,” he said. He said many of the issues Hanson was promoting were worthy ones.
“Let’s face it, we should scale back immigration and we should be more proud of our country,” he said. “And we do have a problem with Islamism that does require decent Muslims to stand up to the ‘death to the infidels’ extremists.”
Asked if he was working behind the scenes to become the Liberal party leader if the Turnbull government lost the next election, Abbott did not deny it.
“Look, my determination is to be of the best service I can be to the people of Australia and, as Pauline suggested in her remarks a moment ago, I think that public life is a vocation,” he said. “It’s not a job, it’s not a career, it’s a calling.