Things could get awkward as Turnbull and Abbott to be unlikely travel companions

THEY say you don’t really know someone until you’ve travelled with them. Now Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott are set to be unlikely travel companions.

MALCOLM Turnbull and Tony Abbott are set to be unlikely travel companions in two weeks.

The invitation to a major prime ministerial event in France has been sent to Mr Abbott and he is likely to accept, although his office has yet to confirm details with news.com.au.

The reason he would want to be there is that on Anzac Day, Prime Minister Turnbull will officially open the $100 million Sir John Monash Centre at Villers-Bretonneux, scene of France’s bloody Western Front conflicts in WWI.

Malcolm Turnbull has the honour, but it was his predecessor Tony Abbott who had the idea, pushed the project through cabinet, and chose the final design.

Further, there is speculation that lobbying for Sir John to be promoted posthumously to Field Marshall might pay off during the visit. Sir John left Australia in a 1914 convoy as a colonel, was knighted and promoted to general in the field, and his admirers argues he deserves the additional promotion.

Tony Abbott had the idea. Picture: AP Photo/Rick Rycroft

Malcolm Turnbull has the honour. Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

Mr Abbott’s admiration of the civil engineer who was perhaps our greatest military commander is obvious. That’s part of the reason his small group of Liberal, vigorously agitating for greater use of coal in electricity generation, called itself the Monash Forum.

Sir John ran Victoria’s electricity system from 1920 until his death in 1931 when coal was the dominant fuel source and renewable energy a minor factor.

Prime Minister Turnbull will head for Europe next week for a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in London.

He will then spend three days in Germany, make a brief visit to Belgium, and on April 25 open the Monash Centre before flying home later that same morning.

The Prime Minister will be out of the country — and Nationals Leader Michael McCormack will be Acting Prime Minister.

Further, there are observers who fear the Prime Minister will be spending 10 days overseas when he should be tending to voter unrest at home — some of it caused by Mr Abbott and his Triple-A Gang with former ministers Kevin Andrews and Eric Abetz.

The conversation between the two in France could be strained after Mr Abbott endorsed calls from another disgruntled former minister, the National’s Barnaby Joyce, for Mr Turnbull to lift his opinion poll ratings by the end of the year or reconsider his position.

The former prime minister was in Villers-Bretonneaux in April, 2015 to reveal plans for the Monash Centre, and underline the importance he placed on Australian operations on the Western Front as against those earlier in Gallipoli.

“Gallipoli was a splendid failure; the Western Front was a terrible success and we should recall our victories as much as our defeats,” he said at the time.

“In the final months of the war, the five divisions of the Australian army, fighting together for the first time, bested 39 German divisions, took 29,000 prisoners, captured 338 guns and advanced over more than 40 miles of contested ground.

Sir John Monash Centre, Villers-Bretonneux. Picture: David Dyson

Sir John Monash.

“It was the commander of the Australian Army Corps, General Sir John Monash, who most thoroughly brought organisation and technology to the battlefield: to break the stalemate of trench warfare and the futility of men charging against barbed wire and machineguns.

“And it was on these broad slopes to the east, that Monash and his men fought what has been acclaimed as ‘the perfect battle’ at Le Hamel.

“Soon, this shrine will be more than a place to mourn and reflect; it will also be a place to learn and to understand.”

Australian troops recaptured Villers-Bretonneux 100 years ago — on Anzac Day 1918 — and helped turn the war to an allied victory.

Mr Abbott noted: “Marshal Foch said of the Australians here, ‘You saved Amiens, you saved France; our gratitude will remain ever and always to Australia.’”