Tony Abbott hits airwaves with radio 2GB host Ray Hadley

The former PM took aim at colleagues, Labor leaders and Hizb ut-Tahrir during his debut on Ray Hadley’s show.

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott with 2GB host Ray Hadley. Picture: Twitter

Bill Shorten may not be the world’s worst bloke at a personal level, but as a politician he is a “union stooge who will send your power prices through the roof”, according to Tony Abbott.

The former prime minister has sharpened his warning about the prospect of the Opposition Leader becoming prime minister in his first regular interview with Sydney broadcaster Ray Hadley.

Mr Abbott, who this morning penned a five-point treatise in the Daily Telegraph on what the Turnbull government must do to win back voters’ support, has replaced Scott Morrison in the Monday morning timeslot after the Treasurer’s falling out with Hadley last week.

As well as talking up action on energy prices and senate reform and singling out the Human Rights Commission as a “nanny state bureaucracy” which has been “persecuting journalists”, Mr Abbott revealed he had recently had a “very blunt conversation” with Mathias Cormann, after the Finance Minister attacked him during a Sky News interview.

Mr Abbott said he had used his Pollie Pedal charity bike ride from Albury to Sydney last week as an eight day listening tour, and it was clear people were more disillusioned than ever with the political class.

“They’re sick of governments that don’t deliver, they’re sick of oppositions that play politics, they’re sick of minor parties that are all grievance and no solution, and they want all of us to lift our game, and I think what we need to do is focus less on ourselves, and focus more on the country,” he said.

Mr Abbott said the government had to reduce power prices by freezing the Renewable Energy Target, address housing affordability by cutting back on immigration, crack down on political correctness, and address budget repair by avoiding all new spending and cutting frivolous spending.

“The Senate is giving us gridlock, not government, so we’ve got to do something about that, and as a Liberal I think we’ve got to do something about Bill Shorten, because if we don’t do something about Bill Shorten there could very well be a change of government at the next election, and Bill Shorten may not be the world’s worst bloke at a personal level, but as a politician he is a union stooge who will send your power prices through the roof, so these are the things that I take from my recent eight day listening tour,” Mr Abbott said.

“If we did get a Shorten government it would be by far the worst Labor government in our history. It would be worse than Rudd, worse than Gillard.

On the Human Rights Commission and Hizb ut-Tahrir

“It would be Daniel Andrews from Victoria on steroids, and the first thing that the Daniel Andrews government did when it got elected was spend $1 billion not to build a road.”

Mr Abbott also attacked the Human Rights Commission for not taking action against groups such as radical Islamic organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir, whose women’s group last week posted a video demonstrating “appropriate” ways by which Muslim men may hit disobedient wives.

“It is never, never right for men to hit women, and this idea that any organisation, particularly an organisation which claims to be religiously inspired, should condone wife beating or women beating is just outrageous,” Mr Abbott said.

He said it had been difficult for governments, including his, to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir, because they had always managed to keep themselves “just within the law”.

“What I tried to do as prime minister was to tighten the law to stop them from doing and saying what they were doing and saying, for instance I initiated a process whereby incitement of genocide would become a crime,” Mr Abbott said.

The former PM said “nanny state bureaucracies” such as the Human Rights Commission should be taking action against groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir.

“They’re persecuting journalists, for God’s sake,” he said.

“What about having a go at people who are genuinely damaging and dividing our society such as Hizb ut-Tahrir?

“If the Human Rights Commission is to justify the $50 million a year that taxpayers spend on it, let’s get them on to Hizb ut-Tahrir and some of these other Islamist extremist organisations.

“They were touting for business against (late Australian cartoonist) Bill Leak. What about inviting Muslim women who have been monstered by their husbands or boyfriends to get onto the Human Rights Commission so that these people can be properly brought to book?”

On energy

Mr Abbott said there was high overseas demand for Australian coal, but a reluctance to use it here.

“Other countries can’t get enough of Australia’s coal because it’s as clean as coal gets, and they’re building the most modern coal-fired power stations which have far fewer emissions than the ones we currently have in Australia,” he said.

“Rather than trying to demonise coal, let’s make the most possible use of it, the best possible use of it in ultra-efficient, low-emitting power stations, because the best, most reliable, most affordable form of baseload power is that that’s provided by coal, and this is going to be true for decades to come.”

He said the problem with renewable energy was that when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine, the power doesn’t flow.

“We talk about renewables, but we really should talk about unreliable and intermittent power because that’s what solar and wind is,” he said.

On North Korea

Mr Abbott said North Korea was a tiny country but it had the potential to use its weapons to do “massive damage”, and China needed to play a role in reining it in.

“This is a very serious situation,” he said.

“I think that President Trump is determined to take some action against the rogue regime in North Korea, if it isn’t reined in, so it really is important for China to step up here.

“China is the only country with the capacity to rein in Korea without military action of some sort, so let’s hope the Chinese shoulder their responsibilities, do the right thing by the international community, put the pressure on North Korea that’s needed.

“You’re right, it’s hereditary communist dictatorship. It is probably, it’s almost a comic opera country, except it’s comic opera with potentially deadly consequences.”

On whether Malcolm Turnbull should remain PM

Mr Abbott reiterated his view, expressed in his article this morning, that “the best way to keep Shorten out is not to sack an elected prime minister yet again, but to ensure that the government does its job better”.

“What we need is good government, and generally speaking you don’t get good government by having a revolving door prime ministership,” he said.

“It’s not a question of who is the prime minister so much as a question of what is the government doing, and that’s where we need the best possible government and that’s why I’ve been putting forward, if you like, a five point plan for better government and I hope this is something that the cabinet and the prime minister will consider in the weeks and months ahead.”

On senate reform

Mr Abbott reiterated his calls for Senate reforms which would allow for a joint sitting of the parliament without need for a double dissolution election if the government was repeatedly unable to get legislation through the Senate.

“We had a very big majority in the lower house, but we were constantly stymied in the Senate where you had a populist cross bench that was allergic to anything that involved cutting spending, cutting regulation and reducing taxes on the most productive and entrepreneurial people in the country,” he said.

On budget repair

Mr Abbott said the people had to live within their means, and the federal government was no different from a business or household.

“If you spend more than you earn, ultimately you go broke, and our country has been living on the credit card since 2008 and sooner or later it is all going to end badly unless we take the requisite action as soon as possible, and this budget is as good as any time to get on with it,” he said.

On Safe Schools

Mr Abbott welcomed the NSW government’s decision yesterday to replace the Safe Schools sexuality and gender anti-bullying program with a less controversial program.

“This is a terrible, terrible program,” he said.

“It was initiated by the Gillard government. I regret to say it got rolling under my government, but of course lots of things happen down in the bowels of bureaucracy that the people at the top of the system aren’t aware of.

“Now as soon as we were aware of this thing I spoke out against it and to Malcolm Turnbull’s credit some action was taken against it, but it’s a very good thing that the New South Wales government is now dropping it from schools because this was never about anti-bullying, this was always about social engineering.

“Teachers have known since time immemorial that bullying is a bad thing, and every decent teacher in the classroom from the middle of the 19th Century to today has known that it is his or her responsibility to stop bullying.”