Tony Abbott Quotes & Sayings

We will be a consultative, collegial government. No surprises, no excuses. That's what you'll get under the Coalition. — Tony Abbott

In the era of mobile phones and emails, you're no more out of the loop in China than you are in Sydney. — Tony Abbott

There may not be a great job for [Aboriginal people] but whatever there is, they just have to do it, and if it's picking up rubbish around the community, it just has to be done. — Tony Abbott

Voluntary paid maternity leave: yes; compulsory paid maternity leave: over this Government's dead body, frankly. It just won't happen. — Tony Abbott

It is very important for our long-term economic future that the relationship with Japan, Korea and China, who are our three biggest trading partners, be ever stronger. — Tony Abbott

When you are challenging the young, they can come back at you with language of tremendous power and they are no respecters of sacred cows, you know, the young. There's nothing politically correct about the average young Australian when it comes to use of language. — Tony Abbott

I would not want to see any relaxation of the law prohibiting human cloning. — Tony Abbott

I am not being negative, I am simply being factual when I say Kevin Rudd is the best friend the people smugglers have ever had — Tony Abbott

All of the people who are using their BlackBerries or their iPhones, Facebook, all of the people who are sitting in cafes and hotels rooms doing their work, they're all using wireless technology, and we shouldn't assume that the only way of the future is high speed cable. — Tony Abbott

We will act to build a better world. We always have, we always will. We will act to lend a helping hand, not just here but wherever we humanly can. — Tony Abbott

The last thing Australia needs right now is instability and uncertainty. — Tony Abbott

We've got to maintain freedom of navigation of the seas and in the air. — Tony Abbott

Certainly, my uni days involved some statements that I wouldn't make today. — Tony Abbott

Should we choose to extend our airstrikes into Syria, we will be doing this in the collective self-defence of Iraq. We would be doing this out of a responsibility to protect innocent people at risk of horrible death from the most violent people imaginable.Should we choose to extend our airstrikes into Syria, we will be doing this in the collective self-defence of Iraq. We would be doing this out of a responsibility to protect innocent people at risk of horrible death from the most violent people imaginable. — Tony Abbott

Here we go again, a government which is making yet more excuses for yet more failure when it comes to getting our budgetary situation right. — Tony Abbott

It is a very heavy responsibility [to be a prime-minister] to make, but someone has to make it for our country and I am thrilled and honoured to have that opportunity and that responsibility. — Tony Abbott

The Liberal Party has dealt with the spill motion and now this matter is behind us, we think that when you elect a government, when you elect a prime minister, you deserve to keep that government and that prime minister until you have a chance to change your mind. — Tony Abbott

I think that marriage is, dare I say it, between a man and a woman, hopefully for life and there are all sorts of other relationships which should be acknowledged and recognised, but I don't know that they can be recognised as marriage. — Tony Abbott

I don't think my religious convictions should be held against me. — Tony Abbott

They've changed the salesman but they haven't changed the product. — Tony Abbott

Australia will take more refugees from Syria in response to the growing international crisis but it will not increase the total number of asylum seekers it accepts. — Tony Abbott

The Australian people expect the Government to govern, they don't expect it to make excuses. — Tony Abbott

Taxes will always be lower under a Coalition government — Tony Abbott

We accept that sometimes in difficult circumstances, difficult things happen. — Tony Abbott

Teachers who are accountable to principals who are, in turn, accountable to school communities are likely to be more professionally 'grounded' and less susceptible to avant garde fashions in curriculum and pedagogy. School — Tony Abbott

Australia would play its role in taking displaced people from the Syrian conflict. — Tony Abbott

Today, we have got more excuses from the government. — Tony Abbott

Jesus knew that there was a place for everything and it's not necessarily everyone's place to come to Australia. — Tony Abbott

What we are determined to do is to take more people from Syria and that war-torn part of the world as a response to this particular crisis, but again I stress we are taking people from camps because the last thing we want to do is to encourage and reward people smuggling.We are taking people from camps and we are taking family groups; our focus will be on family groups, from persecuted minorities. — Tony Abbott

I try to treat people as people and not put them in pigeonholes. — Tony Abbott

I understand that government should live within its means, value the money it holds in trust from you the taxpayer, avoid waste and, above all else, observe the first maxim of good government: namely, do no avoidable harm. — Tony Abbott

I want to see an end to sovereign risk questions over Australia. — Tony Abbott

The problem with politicians getting to know the issues in indigenous townships is that we tend to suffer from what Aboriginal people call the 'seagull syndrome' - we fly in, scratch around and fly out. — Tony Abbott

When the world is in trouble, Australia responds. Australia is a good, global citizen. — Tony Abbott

Oppositions are not there to get legislation through. Oppositions are there to hold the government to account. — Tony Abbott

A bit of body contact never hurt anyone. — Tony Abbott

I want to run a government, Barnaby wants to be part of a government, which is characterized by the motto if you like, no surprises, no excuses. That will be the motto of an incoming Coalition government. No surprises, no excuses. — Tony Abbott

Look, good government doesn't look for excuses, good government gets on with the job. — Tony Abbott

The sky is where mathematics and magic become one. — Tony Abbott

Human society was so constituted, for human nature was so constituted, that the honour and dignity of a father were connected with that of a son; and there was no son who must not be disturbed and disquieted by imputations on his father. — Tony Abbott

It seems that, notwithstanding the dramatic increases in manmade CO2 emissions over the last decade, the world's warming has stopped. — Tony Abbott

I instinctively try to protect people from filth. — Tony Abbott

The choice made by families not to immunize their children is not supported by public policy or medical research nor should such action be supported by taxpayers in the form of child care payments. — Tony Abbott

There will be no surprises and no excuses from a Coalition government, Barrie. — Tony Abbott

I am, as you know, hugely unconvinced by the so-called settled science on climate change. — Tony Abbott

We just can't stop people from being homeless if that's their choice. — Tony Abbott

I don't bring religion into the square. — Tony Abbott

Middle income families with children are Australia's new poor — Tony Abbott

The truth is I try to take people as I find them. — Tony Abbott

We are sticking with the plan. We have a plan to get taxes down, to get regulation down, to get productivity up, to create jobs, to reduce taxes, to boost prosperity. The plan is working and we are sticking with it. — Tony Abbott

A government that understands the limits of power as well as its potential. — Tony Abbott

In drawing an inference or conclusion from facts proved, regard must always be had to the nature of the particular case, and the facility that appears to be afforded, either of explanation or contradiction. No person is to be required to explain or contradict, until enough has been proved to warrant a reasonable and just conclusion against him, in the absence of explanation or contradiction. — Tony Abbott

There will be no surprises, there will be no excuses, we will do what we've said we will do. — Tony Abbott

Like the Governor-General, when asked what you enjoy most about the job my tendency is to say "today", because of the insights you get into our nation and because of the privileged contact you have with so many people. — Tony Abbott

Both Mum and Dad were converts to Catholicism, and normally if you convert to Catholicism you have thought about it more than someone who just grew up with it, taking it for granted. — Tony Abbott

At one level, the Opposition's most urgent job, between now and the next election, is to publicise the government's mistakes. Randolph Churchill once declared that oppositions should oppose everything, propose nothing and turf the government out. He was right in this fundamental respect: the opposition's job is to get elected. Intelligent oppositions have no unnecessary enemies. They make the government rather than themselves the issue by ensuring that everyone harmed by government decisions well and truly
knows about it. — Tony Abbott

I think that people should come to Australia through the front door, not through the back door. If people want a migration outcome, they should go through the migration channels. — Tony Abbott

We are going to be a government of no surprises and no excuses; a government which keeps its commitments and a government which is straight and candid with the Australian people and that's what we intend to do. — Tony Abbott

If I was in a refugee camp somewhere on the Pakistani border, of course I'd want to come to Australia. — Tony Abbott

What I would like to see is sufficiently good education and health services being delivered to Aboriginal people so that they are prepared and ready to leave and join the economic mainstream if that's their choice. — Tony Abbott

Putting labels on people is so counter-productive. Most of us on some issues could be considered conservative, on other issues could be considered progressive, on other issues might be thought of as being moderate, on other issues might be thought of as being rather forthright. — Tony Abbott

We cannot suffer a person by his affidavit to arraign the whole justice of the country and its administration. — Tony Abbott

I think there does need to be give and take on both sides, and this idea that sex is kind of a woman's right to absolutely withhold, just as the idea that sex is a man's right to demand I think they are both they both need to be moderated, so to speak — Tony Abbott

There's a sense in which politicians can never work hard enough. — Tony Abbott

I don't think it's a very Christian thing to come in by the back door rather than the front door, — Tony Abbott

I think that it's high time that the Prime Minister stopped making excuses for bad policy and started listening to the forgotten families of Australia. — Tony Abbott

I think it would be folly to expect that women will ever dominate or even approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons — Tony Abbott

And a government that accepts that it will be judged more by its deeds than by its mere words. — Tony Abbott

Well, I'm not saying that an emissions tax is ever going to be good policy. — Tony Abbott

Faith is important to me. It's important to millions of Australians. It helps to shape who I am. It helps to shape my values. But it must never, never dictate my politics. — Tony Abbott

There are no factions in the Liberal Party. — Tony Abbott

I was a very senior minister in the Howard government and I sat around this particular table [in the prime ministerial office] in many discussions. The difference between being a senior minister and the prime minister is that ultimately the buck does stop with the prime minister and in the end the prime minister has to make those critical judgement calls and that's the big difference. — Tony Abbott

I think leadership is knowing what you want to achieve and then purposefully and sensibly taking steps to achieve it, remembering always that you have got to bring people with you if you are seeking to be a successful political leader. — Tony Abbott

Aboriginal people have much to celebrate in this country's British heritage — Tony Abbott

I feel a little uncomfortable at being asked the sorts of questions that other Catholics in public life tend not to be asked. — Tony Abbott

I want to be a very good friend to Indonesia, but there are some things which are non-negotiable. Border protection is just non-negotiable. Maintaining a strong security network is just non-negotiable. I think the Indonesians understand that. — Tony Abbott

There are some issues where ministers should come and talk to the prime minister, if the prime minister hasn't already talked to them. Any issue which a minister thinks is going to be profoundly controversial, where we do not have a clear existing position, it is important that there be a conversation between the minister and the prime minister. I think they all understand that and I think it is working very well. — Tony Abbott

If people are going to do things which have certain consequences that they would rather avoid, they should do whatever they need to avoid the consequences. — Tony Abbott

I think that political marriages are subject to more strain than most precisely because of the nature of politics. — Tony Abbott

We are a very like-minded group, the senior members of this government. The outliers are not very far away from the mainstream. — Tony Abbott

Abortion is the easy way out. It's hardly surprising that people should choose the most convenient exit from awkward situations. — Tony Abbott

I think my wife and my kids are incredibly good to allow me to stay in public life given that they have to cop a whole lot of collateral attention that, being human, they'd rather not get. — Tony Abbott

Three days ago, Dana had been kidnapped by the Norse god Loki and trapped in the Greek Underworld. — Tony Abbott

I'm not saying that people on welfare don't contribute in their own way, but as many as possible should be encouraged to be economically active as well as socially and culturally active. — Tony Abbott

The Australian public are very fair and they are always prepared to give the leader of a major political party a fair go. — Tony Abbott

If we're honest, most of us would accept that a bad boss is a little bit like a bad father or a bad husband ... you find that he tends to do more good than harm. He might be a bad boss but at least he's employing someone while he is in fact a boss. — Tony Abbott

You know what it's like - you see someone on the train screaming awful, racist things and think, 'How can I protect this person's right to free speech? — Tony Abbott

I don't think that my particular religious convictions should be held against me in this campaign any more than the Prime Minister's lack of convictions should be held against her. — Tony Abbott

I am extremely unwilling that we should take upon ourselves to exercise a jurisdiction which the law does not vest in us. — Tony Abbott

Our police, our hard-working police, that our extraordinarily committed and dedicated military personnel, I'm really pleased that they are getting a good paid parental leave scheme. — Tony Abbott

I think there is no doubt that the advent of 24/7 news channels, which are voracious in their demand for constant new content, has accelerated the political process. The rise of social media, in addition to talkback, I think has intensified the political process. — Tony Abbott

We shouldn't be willy-nilly creating potential human life just to satisfy the urges of the scientific community. — Tony Abbott

I can't promise that I won't continue to embarrass people. — Tony Abbott

While I think men and women are equal, they are also different and I think it's inevitable and I don't think it's a bad thing at all that we always have, say, more women doing things like physiotherapy and an enormous number of women simply doing housework. — Tony Abbott

I am a model of positivity compared to the kinds of vitriol, the kinds of destructive criticisms that Labor members of parliament have been making of each other. — Tony Abbott

Western civilisation came to this country in 1788 and I'm proud of that — Tony Abbott

Well, Michael, we will be telling the people of Australia in good time before the next election exactly what they can expect from us. No surprises, no excuses. They will be our watch words going into the election and afterwards, should we form a government. — Tony Abbott

The only thing I wouldn't do is sell my arse. — Tony Abbott

Climate change is crap. — Tony Abbott

If you want to put a price on carbon why not just do it with a simple tax. — Tony Abbott