Strewth... a fireman used to hot water!

AS excuses to cancel dinner go, the text message sent by Tony Abbott to a British friend newly arrived in Sydney is hard to beat. ‘Sorry to do this at short notice, mate, but I’m trying to put out these damned bush fires.’

He wasn’t joking. The former Australian leader and volunteer fireman had flown hundreds of miles to New South Wales after record-breaking temperatures and severe drought triggered massive fires that raged for months last summer.

It was in accordance with Abbott’s swashbuckling style.

For years, Australian politicians have scrupulously avoided being photographed on the beach in anything other than the baggiest of board shorts. Not Abbott.

In 2009, the then leader of the opposition centre- right Liberal party appeared in a pair of ‘budgie smugglers’ – tight Speedos – pounding through the surf.

The pictures went viral but Abbott, a fit fiftysomething at the time, evaded ridicule when it emerged that he was training with his local lifesaving club. Such a vision didn’t put voters off and Abbott served as prime minister between 2013 and 2015.

His knack of generating headlines – and the occasional gaffe – is legendary; from consuming a raw onion whole, skin and all, to show his appreciation to agricultural workers, to warning ‘the housewives of Australia’ that under the rival Labour party it would cost more to do the ironing or dismissing ‘socalled settled science’ on climate change as ‘absolutely c**p’.

He has campaigned for boats carrying migrants to be sent back at sea, for asylum claims to be processed off shore, and set up a military-led border control.

Misogyny is high on the list of his alleged crimes and misdemeanours: in 2012, the then PM Julia Gillard accused him of sexism after he made comments about her being childless and unmarried.

One year later and by then PM himself, he appointed himself minister for women’s issues, too, in what was seen as a brazen riposte to his feminist critics.

A staunch Catholic who trained for the priesthood as a young man, Abbott, now 62, led the campaign against gay marriage in Australia, and has consistently voted against relaxing the laws on abortion and stem cell research, earning himself the nickname of the ‘Mad Monk’.

Abbott, who was born in London and emigrated to Sydney with his parents aged two, has always maintained a strong bond with Britain. After graduating in economics from Sydney University, he attended Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.

HE trained as a journalist before his political ambitions took root, working for Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy until he became an MP in 1994, a seat he held until last year.

In 2015, Abbott was ousted as PM and a recent book about his premiership included the revelation that party members confronted him and his chief of staff Peta Credlin over a ‘perception’ they were having an affair (which they both denied).

Quite what Brussels will make of the Brexit advocate in his reported new guise as a post-departure adviser remains to be seen. But he’s not an unknown quantity, having negotiated with the EU as Australia’s PM.

His appointment has, predictably, angered Labour with shadow international business secretary, Emily Thornberry, saying that his ‘only experience of trade agreements was turning up to sign the treaties [former Australian trade minister] Andrew Robb negotiated for him’.

But a friend of Abbott said last night: ‘He couldn’t care less about the insults. He’s tough, clever, and he’s done business with the EU. We’re lucky to have him.’