Two former Australian Prime Ministers, Hon Tony Abbott and Hon Kevin Rudd join Australian Catholic University Emeritus Professor Greg Craven in a conversation about important issues facing Christianity and society. Rudd and Abbott are longer prime ministers but both now serve the nation in other ways. This conversation is to hear their views, as people Read more
The economic cost of lockdowns means families should be allowed to let elderly relatives with COVID die by letting nature take its course. The comments come from staunch Catholic and former Australian Liberal Party Prime Minister, Tony Abbott. Abbott claims COVID is costing as much as A$200,000 (~NZ $220,000) to give an elderly person an Read more
As David Marr reminded us in his 2012 Quarterly Essay, Political Animal: the Making of Tony Abbott, Abbott’s Catholicism was groomed by the highly charismatic and worldly Emmet Costello, the priest he met as a 16-year-old. It went on to flourish under the tutelage of Bob Santamaria. Abbott was and is on a mission from Read more
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott refuses to link hostage taker Man Haron Monis with Islam. “We don’t blame the Pope for the IRA, and we don’t blame the Catholics living next door for the folly of some people, the folly and madness of some people who may claim a Christian motivation. And I think we Read more
The week before our Prime Minister promised to “shirt-front” the president of Russia, I was at the gravesite of a man who hit his wife so hard she went through a door. The man was my grandfather, on my father’s side, and the woman he assaulted was his wife, my beloved Nana. When this man Read more
Nine mosques in Australia will open their doors to the public later this month in an effort to help overcome prejudices and misunderstandings. The first national mosque open day, to be held on October 25, will see non-Muslims invited to take tours of mosques and to ask questions of Islamic leaders. It will be followed Read more
Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott has criticised a pharmacist for asking customers using the pill for birth control, to shop elsewhere. “That would certainly strike me as highly unusual behaviour,” Mr Abbott, a Catholic, told Fairfax Radio on Friday. “Chemists should act professionally”, he said. Mr Abbott said, ”If anyone has a problem with that, Read more
Tony Abbott says Nauru is a “pleasant island” that can accommodate up to 5000 asylum seekers. During the election campaign he told Neil Mitchell the ‘tent city’ asylum seeker policy would cost about $50 million to set up. Abbott said reports of $75 a week in handouts for asylum seekers was incorrect – “we’re looking Read more
As a public personality, our new prime minister is an involuntary paradox. On the one hand, Tony Abbott is one of the most discussed people in Australia. On the other, much of the discussion is so ill-informed that it conceals, rather than illuminates. Yet the reality is that Abbott almost certainly is one of the Read more
It is widely known that the newly elected Prime Minster of Australia is a Catholic who spent some time in a seminary and is some times called the “Mad Monk” – at least by those who wish to denigrate him. It is less well-known that his wife, Margaret is also a Catholic who was born Read more
