Reasons Tony Abbott is bad for Australia
While it’s difficult to conjure a single reason why anyone would willingly place an abhorrent, gaffe-prone, anachronism of a human-being in charge of their country, bewilderingly, Tony Abbott this weekend became Australia’s Prime Minister. There are innumerable reasons why this is a terrible thing. Here are just a few:
He is a sexist dinosaur. As you’ll discover from our list, Abbott doesn’t hold any kind of equality in very high regard. Let’s start with his attitude to women. Remember when he came up with this classic? ‘What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it’s going to go up in price and their own power bills when they switch the iron on are going to go up, every year…’
His opinion on asylum seekers sucks. Abbott doesn’t like the boats. He famously once said, “Jesus knew that there was a place for everything and it’s not necessarily everyone’s place to come to Australia.” As well as seemingly having a hotline to God’s son, he went on to call boatpeople un-Christian. “I don’t think it’s a very Christian thing to come in by the back door rather than the front door,” he stated. As the ABC said, there is no queue when you run for your life.
He doesn’t believe that climate change is a thing. Quote: “Climate change is absolute crap”. 
This photo. Because we care about you, we’ve made the picture as small as possible. We don’t want to offend your eyes. You get the idea, right? Tony Abbott wearing nothing but his budgie smugglers and that familiar gormless, shit-eating facial expression. If you’re some kind of mega-weirdo and want a bigger version, then you can click the thumbnail. But don’t say we didn’t warn you.
He’s not a fan of the gays. While, in the 21st Century anyone with a brain, (including Kevin Rudd) accepts that two people who love each other should have the right to marry, Abbott’s not so sure. He supports “the existing definition of marriage,” and said, “I probably feel a bit threatened (by homosexuality), as so many people do.” So, you can forget going to any awesome gay weddings from now on.
He doesn’t seem too keen on Indigenous Australians either. He said this about them: “There may not be a great job for them 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.”
More sexism… “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.”
Creepy Dad alert. “If you want to know who to vote for, I’m the guy with the not bad looking daughters”.
His reaction to the death of an Australian soldier? “Shit happens.”
He is unwilling/unable to answer difficult (and not so difficult) questions. Seriously. His ploy when faced with a testing question is to simply stop talking. And that’s it. Genius. It’s as though someone has hit his restart button.
His representatives are equally terrible at answering questions. Despite this, Abbott seems happy with their performance. Check out the brilliantly awkward below clip of Jaymes Diaz getting his knickers in a twist about the six point plan to stop the boats. Although Diaz seemed like he was going to blub at any second, Abbott stood by him. “I think all of us can get a bit flustered sometimes,” he said. “He’s a relatively young bloke… he’s quite smart… he’s a good young fella.” Funny, to us he looks fucking clueless.
Education and health cuts. Whatever Abbott has said previously, you can expect cuts. Last week he said he was “happy” not to quarantine any government spending from his slated Commission of Audit. Worrying times indeed.
The web. Under Abbott, you’ll have to deal with some slow-ass, filtered internet. Labor planned to connect optical fibre to the door of most homes and businesses in Australia while the Liberal plan sees the high speed connection going only to the end of each street. It’ll be like returning to those dark days of dial-up. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
He is economically illiterate.
He doesn’t give two shits about Foreign Aid. Indeed, Aid Watch Australia believes Australia will be considered an uncaring, insular nation now that the Coalition is in power. They say the planned $4.5-billion cut to the aid budget would hurt some of the world’s most disadvantaged communities, particularly in Africa.
Nor does he give two shits about arts and entertainment. The Coalition declined to comment on any of the following questions: “What plans do you have to support and grow the live music industry, especially support for artists and venue operators?” “Will you continue the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards?” “What practical and/or funding support will you provide for the performing arts over the next three years?” “How will you support the Australian film and television production sector?” So that’s pretty fucking worrying.
Did we mention sexism? Last month, Abbott was in the New South Wales electorate of Lindsay with candidate Fiona Scott, when he was asked what the similarities were between her and former Liberal MP Jackie Kelly. His answer? “They’re both good, young, feisty – I think I could probably say have a bit of sex appeal.”
Welcome back to the Dark Ages, Australia.
Words by Bobby Townsend.
