Tony Abbott criticises Liberal Party, urges religious control as guest speaker at Liberal Party branch

THE former Prime Minister has revealed his motivations behind his recent comments — and atheists and Malcolm Turnbull are the prime target.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that comments by Abbott in a speech last week that the conservative government risked a "drift to defeat" were aimed at damaging the ruling coalition. Picture: Rick Rycroft

HELL hath no fury like a former Prime Minister scorned.

Despite the Liberal Party continuing to clean up after Tony Abbott’s recent comments, including the fact the party is “haemorrhaging members”, the former Prime Minister is at it again — and atheists and Malcolm Turnbull are the prime target.

“Just at the moment, I’m not always the person that every Liberal wants to associate with,” Mr Abbott said, the audience laughing in return.

Using his guest appearance at a Liberal Party branch meeting on Monday night, Mr Abbott used the opportunity to explain the reasons surrounding his recent controversial comments, including lashing out at Australia’s submarine program and calling for an overhaul of policy and Liberal Party reform in a radio interview with Sydney shock jock Alan Jones.

This was an Instagram posting from inside @TonyAbbottMHR speech with @MichaelSukkarMP pic.twitter.com/5DDaAGQVOj

— Samantha Maiden (@samanthamaiden) July 5, 2017

“One of the reasons why I’m speaking out is not because I think we’ve got to change the personnel but because I think we’ve got to just move the direction a little bit,” he said in leaked audio obtained by the Sydney Morning Herald.

Branch members were invited to the event organised by assistant treasurer Michael Sukkar, whose electorate the event lay in.

“He is definitely on the war path,” a source told journalist Michael Koziol.

“I have never seen him speaking so well or looking so good.”

.@TonyAbbottMHR: "For too long, the party hierarchy has expected the rank-and-file to turn up, to pay up, and to shut up." #auspol pic.twitter.com/dr6s91Ah0S

— #BringBackAbbott (@TeamTAbbott) July 1, 2017

Members were offered “a rare opportunity to join former Prime Minister Tony Abbott to discuss how to navigate the political sphere as a Christian and ensure legislation supports family values”.

Mr Abbott’s Christian values were core at the speech, in which he lamented the crumbling values of Christian society and said Australians had put up with those that did not share the same values for too long.

“For too long, the good people of our country have been too tolerant of people who do not share some of the fundamental values that have made us who we are.

“As Michael [Sukkar] said a few moments ago, a majority that stays silent does not stay a majority,” Mr Abbott said.

Mr Abbott is refusing to remain silent despite warnings from senior conservative Liberal MPs that the party needs to “move on” from its bitter infighting or lose government.

In his most recent speech, Mr Abbott challenged supporters “to fight so that the existing government, the existing cabinet and the existing prime minister are as good as they possibly can be”.

“Just at this moment, let me tell you, we’re at a bit of a low ebb.”

.@MichaelSukkarMP says he never considered cancelling a function he was hosting with Tony Abbott in Melbourne #AMagenda pic.twitter.com/cUjMuIil2C

— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) July 4, 2017

Mr Sukkar defended Mr Abbott’s appearance on Sky News yesterday, describing it as a “pretty routine branch meeting”.

“It was reasonably well-attended, but as most members of parliament would know, your local members get a little bit sick of just hearing from their own member time after time, so it’s very routine for us to get guest speakers in to speak to our branches and this was a longstanding commitment of Tony’s to visit and speak to my electorate conference, so in that sense it was a very routine meeting but we had a really good turnout and volunteer organisations like the Liberal Party only thrive when we have an engaged membership and it’s one of the things that I try and do, and having guest speakers in aids that objective.”

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