Australia’s Speedos-loving, gaffe-prone Liberal/National Coalition leader Tony Abbott may be known as the “Mad Monk,” but his earthy personality may see the one-time trainee priest win power.
Abbott, a Catholic, monarchist, family man, faces off against the Labor Party’s unwed, childless, atheist, career woman Prime Minister Julia Gillard in national elections on Aug. 21.
The straight-talking Abbott was a rank outsider for the opposition leadership, but pulled off a major shock in December when he won by just one vote to take over the flailing Liberal/National Coalition.
His ascension — which made him the opposition’s third leader since John Howard lost government two years earlier — was greeted with “a roar of gobsmacked silence” in Canberra, the Sydney Morning Herald said at the time.
But he has performed strongly in opinion polls since then, sufficiently rattling the ruling Labor Party that it dumped former prime minister Kevin Rudd in favor of Gillard last month.
Abbott, a former Cabinet minister in the Howard government, has relished the role; helping bring down the government’s planned carbon trading scheme designed to combat climate change and attacking a 40 percent mining tax.
But he has not been without his critics who accused him of neglecting serious policy work for exercise, particularly after he spent nine days on a 1,000km Melbourne to Sydney charity bike ride.
Often appearing in newspapers in “budgie smuggler” swimming trunks or clinging lycra, Abbott entered an ironman race in March, completing a 3.8km ocean swim, 180km bike ride and 42km run in less than 14 hours.
But his mouth has also got him in trouble, notably when he admitted politicians don’t always tell the truth, saying that the statements that should be “taken absolutely as gospel truth” were “those carefully prepared, scripted remarks.”
“All of us, when we’re in the heat of verbal combat, so to speak, will sometimes say things that go a little bit further,” he told ABC.
The former student boxer has also had to shrug off earlier comments that climate-change science was “crap,” as “a bit of hyperbole.”
After winning the opposition leadership position, the super-fit ex-Rhodes Scholar asked the public to give him a clean slate.
“I acknowledge that at times, I have stuffed up,” he said, as his deputy opposition leader, Julie Bishop, mouthed: “That’s true.”
Abbott has frequently been caught swearing in front of the cameras, once accusing Gillard, then deputy prime minister, of wearing a “shit-eating grin” and offering only a qualified apology afterwards.
However, Abbott wins favor for his honesty and entertainment value.
In his first parliamentary appearance as opposition chief Abbott joked that he would now have to stop “flirting” with Gillard and he has since acknowledged there would be a “wow factor” associated with Australia’s first woman PM.
“I’m the father of three daughters, of course I’m excited about the fact,” he said. “This proves that no job is barred to anyone.”
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS