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Prime Minister, 18 September 2013 to 15 September 2015
Liberal Party of Australia
Life saver, volunteer firefighter, journalist, and monarchist, Australia’s 28th Prime Minister Tony Abbott (b.1957) was a pugnacious and powerful orator able to cut to the heart of a political issue.1
Abbott was born in London but moved to Australia with his family in 1960. He was active in student politics while studying law and economics at the University of Sydney, and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University. On his return, Abbott attended St Patrick’s Seminary before turning to journalism. He married Margaret Aitken in 1988; they had three daughters.
Abbott was briefly courted by the Labor Party, before meeting his mentor and friend John Howard. In 1990 he became press secretary and adviser to Opposition Leader John Hewson2. After the Coalition lost the 1993 election, he become Executive Director of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy3. He entered Parliament in 1994, winning Warringah (NSW) in a by-election; he held the seat until his defeat in the 2019 election.
In 1996 Abbott was appointed a parliamentary secretary in the Howard Government and, in 1998, Minister for Employment Services. Entering Cabinet in 2001 as Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, he was instrumental in establishing the Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry. As Minister for Health and Ageing (2003–07) he introduced the Extended Medicare Safety Net for out-of-hospital medical services. He was Leader of the House from 2002 to 2007, when the Howard Government was defeated. Abbott subsequently became Shadow Minister for Families, Community Services, and Indigenous Affairs and wrote Battlelines, ‘his philosophical and policy manifesto’4. In December 2009, he became Opposition Leader, defeating Malcolm Turnbull and Joe Hockey in a leadership ballot5. However, he failed to win crossbench support in the hung parliament following the 2010 election, and Labor was returned as a minority government.
In 2013 the Coalition was returned to power and Abbott became Australia’s 28th Prime Minister. The Abbott Government repealed the Clean Energy Act 2011, introduced Operation Sovereign Borders, and finalised free trade agreements with Japan, South Korea, and China. In early 2014 Abbott reinstated Knights and Dames to the Order of Australia, a controversial decision subsequently overturned.
His public and party popularity waning, in 2015 Abbott was defeated in a leadership spill by Malcolm Turnbull 54–446. However, he remained on the government backbench and was appointed Special Envoy on Indigenous Affairs by Prime Minister Scott Morrison in 20187. In 2019 Abbott became only the fifth sitting or former Prime Minister to lose an election.
In retirement, Abbott has continued to be active as a volunteer in the NSW Rural Fire Service, the Queenscliff Surf Life Saving Club, and the annual Pollie Pedal charity bike ride. In 2020 he was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia, and official adviser to the UK Board of Trade.
Johannes Leak
Johannes Leak studied classical drawing and painting at Sydney’s Julian Ashton Art School from 1999 to 2004. He then spent several years living in Berlin, Germany, where he worked as a commercial artist across several disciplines including animation and illustration for multimedia and production studios. On his return to Australia in 2010, Leak continued to work as a commercial artist and illustrator. Following in the footsteps of his father, cartoonist and painter Bill Leak, he began working for The Australian newspaper in 2017 as a cartoonist. In 2019, he became The Australian’s chief editorial cartoonist and was awarded the Bill Leak Cartoonist of the Year Award at the 2021 NewsCorp Australia News Awards. His 2021 portrait of Senator Jacinta Price was acquired by the State Library of NSW. In 2022, he completed the portrait of Prime Minister Tony Abbott for the HMC.8
References
1. Information in this biography has also been taken from the following: M Grattan, ‘Anthony John Abbott’ in Australian Prime Ministers: Revised and Updated Edition, Sydney, New Holland Publishing, 2016; ‘Australian Prime Ministers: Tony Abbott’, Museum of Australian Democracy; ‘Australia’s prime ministers: Tony Abbott’, National Archives of Australia; ‘Biography’, Tony Abbott website; ‘Prime Ministers of Australia: Tony Abbott’, National Museum of Australia. Websites accessed 16 September 2022.
2. ‘Hewson, Dr John Robert’, Parliamentary Handbook online, Parliamentary Library, accessed 16 September 2022.
3. M Duffy, ‘The missing element of self-doubt’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 5 December 2009, accessed 16 September 2022.
4. Grattan, ibid, p. 511. See ‘Howard, the Hon John Winston, AC’, Parliamentary Handbook online, Parliamentary Library, accessed 16 September 2022.
5. ‘Hockey, the Hon Joseph (Joe) Benedict’, Parliamentary Handbook online, Parliamentary Library, accessed 16 September 2022.
6. Ibid, p. 520.
7. ‘Morrison, the Hon Scott Paul’, Parliamentary Handbook online, Parliamentary Library, accessed 16 September 2022.
8. Information in this biography has been taken from material supplied by the artist himself.