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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Comment
Marcia Langton

Tony Abbott’s argument about Australian democracy is Trumpian in intent and based on half-truths

Tony Abbott Donald Trump Australia United States Democracy CPAC Fitzgerald Lyndall Ryan Tim Flannery Viktor Orbán
Marcia Langton on former prime minister Tony Abbot's Australia: A History
Tony Abbott’s Australia: A History ‘does not include Indigenous Australia in any meaningful way,’ Marcia Langton says. Composite: James McCauley/Shutterstock/HarperCollins Australia

Are there two conservative political leaders with the name Tony Abbott? The author of Australia, A History: How an ancient land became a great democracy. And the one who praised Viktor Orbán in his speech at the Hungarian conference of Conservative Political Action Network, or Cpac, the same Viktor Orbán who is accused of steadily destroying democracy in Hungary.

There is one Tony Abbott but two faces. At the same Cpac conference in Hungary, he stated: “Trump 1.0 and Brexit were popular revolts that couldn’t quite drain the swamp. We have to hope that Trump 2.0 will be more successful, lest resistance to moral vanity projects be further discredited.” It’s as plain as daylight that US president Trump’s administration is trying to dismantle democracy in the US, so the question is, what is it that Abbott is hoping will be more “successful”?

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