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Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Tony Abbott - Our Inspirational Prime Minister

Credit where credit's due. I really, really never thought this would happen, but there it is.

To Tony Abbott, Australia's conservative Liberal prime minister, I say thank you. Deeply and sincerely.

For without your relentless negativity, without your sneering misogyny and corporate bias, without your denialist blundering and cataclysmic government, we would have been cheated of two of the most compelling, most scathing and yes, most inspirational speeches this country has heard in the past 20 years.

Oh no, don't get me wrong. You didn't MAKE these speeches... let's face it, a public speaker you are not.

No, you INSPIRED them. You CAUSED them. And they are truly magnificent.

First, of course, came THAT speech. In October 2012, then-Prime Minister Julia Gillard rose to respond to a motion that had been moved by Tony Abbott, then Leader of the Opposition. Abbott had made reference to a phrase used earlier in the week by shock jock Alan Jones that Gillard's father had "died in shame" because of her.

Gillard rose, and tore Abbott to shreds in a verbal demolition that echoed around the world.


Now, almost 18 months later, things have changed. Tony Abbott is now in charge, and has brought the same qualities that defined his time in Opposition to the office of Prime Minister.

The carnage that his government has wrought across the country since the last federal election just 6 months ago has been heartbreaking.... but it also gave rise to the most compelling response I have ever seen.

When Greens Senator Scott Ludlam rose (just days ago) to welcome Tony Abbott to Western Australia, few could have anticipated what was to follow: a calm, controlled and utterly furious refutation of Abbott, his actions, his government and his ideology as a whole.

If you watch nothing else today, watch this. And may this be a lesson for the world in general that we, as a nation, are NOT defined by the fatuous sycophant we somehow voted into power.



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