David Marr > Quotes

“when you haven’t got the numbers, be vicious. It’s called minority politics.”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“We all thought Tony would be a force to be reckoned with when he grew up and we’re still waiting.”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“But before the year was out, Oldfield was plotting with the Queensland renegade Pauline Hanson to set up her new party. This emerged only after he left Abbott’s office in April 1997 armed with a glowing reference from the member for Warringah. A humiliated Abbott blasted Oldfield: “He’s a dangerous, snaky Rasputin who thrives on notoriety. Sure, I had him on my staff when I knew he held some unnaturally intense views on some things, but he seemed like a Liberal with a reasonable standing in the community. I’m not making any big claims for myself, but even Jesus had his Judas.”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“A first bill for the abolition of compulsory student union fees failed in 2004 but it was back as soon as the government won control of the Senate.”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“While he was pilloried for enforcing a severe regime of punishment to force them to look for jobs, he was trying behind the scenes to persuade the government to take another course entirely. He wanted tax breaks for those on welfare to encourage them to take work. This was his one big idea in the portfolio and he has cited it since as evidence that somewhere inside the Liberal Party the DLP was alive and well. But not very alive: the plan was killed off by Howard.”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“He wanted the assurance from the department that nothing was going wrong underneath. But as long as that was the case, he didn’t really want to get into all the detail of how the Job Network was actually running. He was not hands-on. He was generally interested in employment but he was not one of those ministers who run their department.”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“They see a lot of pit bull pups at the RSPCA, her handler tells me. Why? “Because young guys have pit bulls and they are idiots and they don’t desex their dogs.”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“If we hadn’t controlled the Senate, I would never have had to eat that particular shit sandwich,” Abbott told Peter Hartcher. “Getting control of the Senate was a curse. It allowed us to do things that we would not normally have been able to get away with and I think it tempted us to chance our arm in ways which ultimately did us significant political damage.” In the end, he decided to stay in cabinet. He didn’t bitch and moan to the press gallery. He went back to work.”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“The press has given up saying so but these two men are denouncing what they once supported: a price on carbon and an emissions trading scheme.”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“He stumbled and told the truth one night: workers had lost protections under WorkChoices.”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“Abbott was all over the shop on emissions trading. He feared destruction at the ballot box if the Opposition blocked Rudd. “The government’s emissions trading scheme is the perfect political response to the public’s fears,” he had said in late July 2009.”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“But the bill was also loathed by the National Party because it would drain university sporting clubs of cash. Out in the bush, those clubs and that money mattered.”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“A happy Hickie verdict on Abbott: “He’s not a reformer; he’s a great opportunist.”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“What he’s about is destroying a government. Looking like a prime minister in waiting is a second-order consideration.”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“He hasn’t reneged on Catholicism entirely. Pope Francis he thinks impressive: “A remarkable guy. A breath of fresh air.” Catholic social teaching is still in his head, along with the “golden rule” every boy was taught at Xavier: “It was at the heart of the Jesuit call to be a ‘man for others.’ And I have spent my working life, both representing workers and as parliamentarian, trying to measure up to this standard of compassion and empathy.”
― David Marr, Faction Man: Bill Shorten's Path to Power

“He acknowledges that endorsing push-backs at the National Conference in July was only the latest in a long line of catch-ups with the Coalition’s refugee policies. But he is confident Labor won’t be forced to go any further: the worst has been reached. But isn’t that what Labor always says? “Time will tell but I know that if we want more humanity in our system, I’ll do a better job than the other fellow.”
― David Marr, Faction Man: Bill Shorten's Path to Power

“Heydon’s account of how he got himself into this pickle was so like Shorten’s evidence: he hadn’t read the documents; matters were left to his staff; he wasn’t across the detail; one or two crucial facts had slipped his mind; and no matter how bad things might appear, his integrity remained absolute.”
― David Marr, Faction Man: Bill Shorten's Path to Power

“Abbott’s one big idea in Health was for the Commonwealth to take control of all the nation’s hospitals. This required a shift in his thinking. In the Keating years he had declared that Australia had “a perfectly good system of government provided each tier minds its own business.” He didn’t think so any longer. “As a new backbencher, I had not anticipated how hard this was, given that voters don’t care who solves their problems, they just want them solved.” As Minister for Health he lit on a new guiding conservative principle: “Power divided is power controlled.” He had in mind an enormous reform that would reshape Canberra’s relations with the states. He was roundly mocked in cabinet. His senior bureaucrats put a lot of work into talking him down. Did he really want to be responsible for every asthma patient who had to wait too long in an emergency department? Eventually he was persuaded that Commonwealth public servants could not run hospitals any better than state public servants. This was the argument that got him, but he found it frustrating.”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“WikiLeaks told us how keen the Coalition is to exploit the boats. In late 2009, in the dying days of Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership of the Opposition, a “key Liberal party strategist” popped in to the US embassy in Canberra to say how pleased the party was that refugee boats were, once again, making their way to Christmas Island. “The issue was ‘fantastic,’” he said. “And ‘the more boats that come the better.’” But he admitted they had yet to find a way to make the issue work in their favour: “his research indicated only a ‘slight trend’ towards the Coalition.”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“faction warfare erupted in Victoria. They do politics differently there. Wars are fought in the name of peace. Explosives are packed under the foundations of the Labor Party in the name of stability. They call the wreckage left after these brawls rejuvenation. The wonder is that Victoria delivers any Labor talent to Canberra and remains, decade after decade, a stronghold of the party.”
― David Marr, Faction Man: Bill Shorten's Path to Power

“He was the most in your face. That’s what set him apart. There were, of course, other Liberal Party and DLP types on campus but they weren’t offensive and they weren’t rude. They were people you could talk to. You could sit down and have a cup of tea with them. I would never do that with Tony Abbott. He’s not that sort of person. I don’t care what your politics are, you can still engage with another person. You don’t have to be threatening. You don’t have to be just that awful person. I have no doubt Tony was a most charming man when he wanted to be. It was a very conscious choice he made.”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“He doesn’t see private health insurance rebates or support for private school education as middle-class welfare. He sees it as backing family aspiration, sound public policy encouraging people to do more for themselves. And help should not be cut off simply because a family is earning a hundred thousand dollars or more a year.”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“He accused republicans in his own party of conducting a “proxy war” against Howard. He threw into the mix Churchill, Pétain, Charles de Gaulle, the failings of the Weimar republic and the rise of Hitler. In the Sydney Morning Herald at that time I set him some homework:   Clearly explain how an Australian head of state with powers as proposed in the referendum could bring to office in Canberra a local equivalent of the most vicious dictator of the century?   He never justified the Hitler slur to anyone.”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“Misleading the ABC is not quite the same as misleading the parliament as a political crime.”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“He knows the cruel truth that the baiter is never blamed when victims lose their cool.”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“Abbott was running a one-man campaign to wreck his own organisation.”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“While he was in the neighbourhood he went to New York for the – surely redundant by now – ceremonial visit of the next prime minister to Rupert Murdoch. Back home in the Spectator Australia he laid it on thick again: “Along with the commander of the First AIF, Sir John Monash, and the penicillin inventor, Lord Florey, he is one of the Australians who have made the most difference in the world.”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“Turnbull is sharp with Jones once or twice, asking to be heard, reminding him his heroes Margaret Thatcher and John Howard wanted action on global warming: “Don’t you think,” asks the leader of the Opposition, “you sound like the old lady who says the whole world is mad except for thee and me, and I have my doubts about thee?”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“Abbott joined the union, the Australian Journalists’ Association. He led a little strike at the Bulletin and opposed a big strike at the Australian.”
― David Marr, Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott [Quarterly Essay 47]

“What will it look like in ten years’ time, I ask, that Labor passed a law to throw doctors and nurses in prison for reporting what they see on Manus and Nauru? “We will stand by them,” he replies indignantly. But Labor voted for the Border Force Act and that’s exactly what it does. “I don’t share that interpretation.” This is utterly baffling. Once dragged into court, nurses and social workers may have some whistle-blower protection but Labor voted to drag them there. Labor has voted for secrecy. Shorten has no idea how the camps will be cleared.”
― David Marr, Faction Man: Bill Shorten's Path to Power