‘Sabotaged’: Tony Abbott claims his government was ‘thwarted by leftist establishment’

Tony Abbott has blamed “unelected” officials for his government’s failure, claiming he was “thwarted by a leftist establishment”.

Tony Abbott has blamed “unelected and unaccountable” Canberra officials for his government’s failure, claiming that he was “thwarted by a leftist establishment” and his ministers “captured” bureaucrats.

The former Prime Minister, who was elected in 2013 but was ousted by Malcolm Turnbull in a 2015 leadership spill, has reflected on what he would have done differently if given a second chance.

Writing in Canadian newspaper National Post on Thursday, Mr Abbott urged Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre — who is tipped to become Canada’s next Prime Minister replacing the deeply unpopular Justin Trudeau at this year’s election — to “avoid the traps my government fell into”.

“Across the Anglosphere, recent conservative governments have tended to be in office but not really in power — either because they lacked an agenda of their own, or because what agenda they had was thwarted by a leftist establishment,” the former PM said.

“Winning an election on a promise to be different, and subsequently having to make excuses when not enough changes, is the trap to be avoided by every centre-right political movement on the verge of victory.”

Then Prime Minister Tony Abbott confers with his front bench during Question Time. Picture: Supplied

Mr Abbott said former US President Donald Trump was first elected in 2016 “on a promise to ‘drain the swamp’, but eventually, ‘the swamp’ got him”, while the UK’s Boris Johnson “had the potential to be a great Prime Minister but squandered working people’s support on the altar of climate change-driven policy gimmicks like mandatory electric cars and heat pumps replacing gas boilers”.

Reflecting on his own short-lived Coalition government, Mr Abbott insisted it “started strongly enough by stopping a wave of illegal immigration by small boat and by repealing a carbon tax and a mining tax”.

“But Senate obstruction sabotaged its first, economically reforming budget and internal policy differences then led to a revolving door prime ministership,” he said.

“If the clock could be turned back, I would have insisted that all my frontbenchers provide a detailed blueprint of what needed to change in order to make a difference in their portfolio area, and explain how their proposed changes reflected our ‘smaller government, bigger citizen’ political instincts. I would have insisted that at least a version of their thinking be made public well before an election. That way, the bureaucracy — or at least that section of it still motivated by traditional Westminster ideals of impartial public service — would have had more guidance in policy formation.”

Mr Abbott said this would have made incoming ministers “less susceptible to being ‘snowed’ by unelected and unaccountable officials”.

“An example of this was the introduction, by ministers who had been captured by bureaucrats, of the social engineering, gender fluidity-encouraging Safe Schools program, which was masquerading as an anti-bullying initiative, even though it had been devised under my predecessors,” he said.

“This is where incoming ministers need to have thought through all the key issues they are likely to deal with and be sufficiently robust to interrogate and stand up to officials urging caution or assuring them that the ‘experts’ know best.”

A 2016 rally to support Safe Schools. Picture: Jane Dempster/The Australian

The Safe Schools LGBT-focused anti-bullying program was first introduced in Victorian schools in 2010 before expanding nationwide in 2013.

Safe Schools was heavily criticised by right-wing parliamentarians at the time but Mr Abbott did not raise any concerns about the program while Prime Minister, and his Education Minister Christopher Pyne later defended the program.

“I took the view that the materials in it weren’t directed at me, they were directed at a younger audience, and that bullying in schools is unacceptable,” Mr Pyne told the ABC in 2016.

“And I didn’t want to bring my 48-year-old attitude to these materials because I have children of my own and if they were being bullied at school, I’d want people to be able to get the support that they need.”

A 2016 review into the program commissioned by Mr Pyne’s successor under Mr Turnbull, Simon Birmingham, recommended a number of changes including limiting access to secondary schools and requiring parent opt-ins.

The federal government ceased funding the Safe Schools program in October 2016.

Mr Abbott, in his op-ed, said President-elect Trump appeared to be “much better prepared this time than last” and noted the work of the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a suite of policy proposals that became a major Democratic line of attack during the US election.

While Mr Trump disavowed Project 2025, Mr Abbott opined that “at least a group of clever policy analysts at various think-tanks have been pondering do-able centre-right options for the incoming administration”.

“If I had my time again, I would have worked in advance with like-minded institutes to prepare more detailed plans for key incoming ministers, rather than have them largely directed by the bureaucracy based on sometimes thin pre-election policy announcements,” he said.