I like watching Abbott squirm
Since my previous post, Tony Abbott has continued to make a mockery of his slush fund’s name: “Australians for Honest Politics”. So now I get to sink the boot in. His effort on the 7.30 Report would have been hilarious if it wasn’t so serious. The transcript can’t capture the expression on Abbott’s face as he underwent various definitional contortions in order to evade Kerry O’Brien’s excellent questions; nonetheless, it makes entertaining reading.
The interview started with some background about the nature of the fund, a replay of the 1998 Tony Jones question that Abbott first lied in response to, and the establishment of a chronology. Abbott’s defence to the accusation of dishonesty is that the slush fund hadn’t been established at the time of the 1998 interview.
I’ll pick up where it began to get really interesting.
Kerry O’Brien: Well, Terry Sharples says you had a meeting with him and others on July 7, ‘98, where you offered him $20,000 to cover his legal costs.
Tony Abbott: Well, see, I dispute that and I always have.
KO’B: You did have the meeting though, didn’t you, on July 7?
TA: Yes, so what?
Big deal.
KO’B: And the question of costs didn’t come up?
TA: Look, the question of how much it would cost, what would be the possible downside of a court case — sure, that came up.
KO’B: So you did talk about costs with him and you talked about meeting the costs?
TA: Yes, but there’s a difference between offering to pay someone money — offering to pay Terry Sharples money — and supporting a legal case.
This is a clumsy dodge. Abbott is trying to distinguish between “offering to pay Terry Sharples money” and “supporting a legal case” by offering to pay Terry Sharples money.
However, the important thing for O’Brien at this point was to establish a link between Abbott’s initial promises and the subsequent establishment of the slush fund:
KO’B: Where were you going to get the money?
TA: Well, I’m not going to tell you that, Kerry.
KO’B: When you offered him the money where were you going to get it from?
TA: Kerry, I am not going to tell you that.
KO’B: So you didn’t have a fund in mind?
TA: No, I didn’t.
KO’B: You didn’t have a fund in train?
TA: No, I didn’t at that stage.
At this point, Abbott returns to the intial dodge, trying to differentiate between paying Terry Sharples and paying Terry Sharples for his legal costs. This time, O’Brien won’t let it go:
KO’B: But you were confident that you would be able to find money for him, presumably not out of your own pocket?
TA: Not for him not for him — but for an action, for a legal action.
KO’B: Let’s not split hairs.
Let’s not split hairs.
TA: Well, let’s not.
KO’B: It was to fund his action?
TA: Yes, and there is a world of difference between funding an action or, at least, getting pro bono lawyers to act without charge and having someone who might stand a costs order in the contingency that a costs order might be made and offering him money.
I did not offer him money.
This is where Abbott appeared to go off the rails. He simply can’t explain how promising that Sharples will not be out of pocket, that his costs will be covered, does not constitute offering him money. It is an example of semantic gymnastics at its most futile:
KO’B: And then you offered to underwrite effectively his costs in a legal action.
That is money.
Costs is money, isn’t it?
TA: Well, I said that he would not be out of pocket.
KO’B: Is costs money?
TA: Well –
KO’B: When it really gets down to it, costs is money, isn’t it?
TA: What I said was that he would not be out of pocket.
KO’B: He wouldn’t be out of pocket?
TA: That’s correct.
KO’B: With money?
Money?
Cash?
Money?
TA: Well, I said he wouldn’t be out of pocket.
KO’B: And on July 11 you met him again and you handwrote a guarantee, didn’t you?
TA: I had sent him a note, but this is not new news, Kerry.
KO’B: No, but then on July 31 — TA: All of this was on the record years ago.
KO’B: But on July 31, you told Tony Jones — you gave him an “absolutely not” denial about any kind of funds going to Terry Sharples.
TA: I said that I had not offered him money and I stand by that.
KO’B: You offered him costs?
TA: Well, I said that he wouldn’t be out of pocket.
KO’B: That’s money!
TA: Oh, come on, Kerry.
KO’B: Tony Abbott, that is money.
Let me hear it from your lips — that is money!
TA: Let’s move on.
I did not offer to pay Terry Sharples any money.
KO’B: You offered to cover his costs.
TA: But I did not offer to pay Terry Sharples any money.
KO’B: I think the audience understands that costs is money, so we’ll move on.
This is perhaps the most disingenuous definitional wriggling I’ve seen from a politician in my life. Abbott is a fool if he thinks anyone will buy that distinction, and his wriggling in the chair certainly made it clear that he didn’t buy it himself.
Unfortunately, O’Brien dropped the ball at that point. The damage done, and Abbott shown to be the slippery liar that he is, the rest of the interview descends into farce. O’Brien gets caught up on a couple of questions that are irrelevant. First, he harps on about Abbott’s self-described “flippant remark” about misleading the ABC. Deaf Neddy could tell you that the comment was flippant, but O’Brien can’t let it go. One suspects that if a different outlet had been mentioned it wouldn’t have been raised at all.
Second, he pursues the line that Abbott is somehow responsible for Hanson’s jail term. As Abbott rightly points out, she was prosecuted by the Queensland DPP, convicted by a representative Queensland jury, and sentenced by a Queensland judge. His actions may have turned up evidence, but he did not drive the case against her. This is an unfortunate example of the 7.30 Report stooping to populism and attempting to ride the wave of public sentiment against the Hanson jail term.
Thankfully, the Australian Electoral Commission has announced that it is re-examining its earlier decision that the donors to the slush fund could remain anonymous. It says it has new information that challenges its previous belief that the fund was not party political, but hasn’t said what that information is. [I can't find an online source, but it was on the ABC News.] I have a(n admittedly unfounded) hunch that either Liberal politicians contributed, or the Liberal Party received money from the trust. This is a scandal that will only keep growing.
It was amazing television.
I can see an election campaign add with part of this interview being in it.
Ken Parish was correct in his judgement of this Government.
It was highly entertaining television for sure. Had me in stiches. Sometimes I wish Abbott were PM so we could have more frequent opportunities to scoff at him. Has KO’B had a tell-all interview with Wilson “iron-bar” Tuckey yet?
To me the central issue was the attack on our democratic system by the denial of oxygen to the essential mechanism of public discussion.
Abbott stretched language to breaking point – ie, meaninglessness – by trying to insist that a guarantee of costs was not an offer of money. That we have a system which admits to office leaders who are prepared to do this sort of thing, not only to our language, but also to the standard of our public debate, invites urgent attention to political reform studies.
When you stretch language as far as Abbott was prepared to do last night, meaning is no longer being exchanged. The next step is to own up and say what you really mean in a language of common understanding, so that progress can be made on the issue at hand.
If you don’t do this, which as we saw was the path Abbott took, then you are effectively telling your audience to go eat cake and are in danger of being taken by them to be declaring war, since, once a discussant is seen to be merely talking at other participants without any effort to exhange meaning, and obviously without any intention to do so, what alternative is there?
I missed it so thanks for the link Rob. Abbot is a lying prat and a damn fool if he thinks Joe Public is dumb enough to swallow that load of crap. His plan is to make as much smoke as possible and then slip away in the confusion.