Tony Abbott and his epic battle with the grapes of sloth
Niki Savva in her book The Road to Ruin (2016):
(Former Coalition MP Alex) Somlyay recalls that when (Tony) Abbott was leader he insisted on everyone being part of the team and playing a team game, but his own behaviour fell well short of what was required when he was an opposition frontbencher. “He missed more divisions than anybody else. We were always chasing him to come into the house to handle bills. He wouldn’t turn up. We had to get people like Louise Markus to do it,” Somlyay told me. Somlyay recalled one critical night in opposition when Abbott goofed off. Abbott had gone to the dining room to have dinner with Peter Costello, Kevin Andrews and Peter Dutton on the night in February 2009 when parliament was debating (Kevin) Rudd’s second stimulus package. Somlyay sent the whip’s clerk, Nathan Winn, to get the group down to listen to (Malcolm) Turnbull’s speech. They said no, but they would be down for the divisions, which Somlyay thought was fair enough. Somlyay says the staffer noticed six empty wine bottles on the table.
Savva continues:
Come the first division, the other three arrived in the chamber and duly voted. Abbott did not appear. Somlyay rang from the chamber to tell Winn to find Abbott and get him into the chamber to vote. Winn took along another staffer, James Newbury — whose employment in government was subsequently blocked by (Peta) Credlin after a screaming match with Abbott that could be heard by other staff — because he was a bit frightened of what he might find. Newbury was the one who walked into Abbott’s office and found him stretched out on his couch. He shook him a number of times, but there was no response. “He was asleep. They couldn’t wake him,” Somlyay recalled. “He was so drunk. The next morning, Abbott rang me to say, ‘Mate, I am so sorry I missed that division. I fell asleep. I spent the whole weekend with the fire brigade.’ ”
Abbott responding to Savva’s book on March 7 last year:
I’m not in the business of raking over old coals, nor am I in the business of responding to scurrilous gossip and smear.
Primrose Riordan on The Australian’s website yesterday:
Malcolm Turnbull says Tony Abbott was so drunk he could not be moved or roused during votes in 2009 over global financial crisis spending bills. Abbott has admitted, in an episode of the ABC series The House due to air on September 5, that he was asleep after a boozy night in Parliament House during the votes … In the episode Mr Abbott laughed as he shared his memories of the night in the members-only dining room, with fellow Liberal MPs Kevin Andrews and Peter Costello, which led to him missing five votes in early 2009 and said now “quite a few bottles of wine were consumed” between the trio.
Sharri Markson in The Sunday Telegraph on March 8, 2009:
Mr Abbott told The Sunday Telegraph the group had consumed a couple of bottles of wine but denied he had fallen asleep as a result of heavy drinking … Asked if he was drunk, Mr Abbott said: “That is an impertinent question. I had dinner with the gentlemen you mentioned, there’s no doubt we had a couple of bottles of wine, I wasn’t keeping count, maybe two. This is an impertinent question. I’m going to politely hang up now.”
Abbott to Annabel Crabb in that forthcoming episode of The House:
There was one famous occasion when Peter Costello, Kevin Andrews and I hung out rather a long time here. The night that the then Rudd government was trying to bring in measures to deal with the GFC. I think quite a few bottles of wine were consumed by the three of us … The impact was rather greater than it should have been. I think I famously slept through several divisions … I lay down, and the next thing I knew it was morning.