Top 150 Tony Abbott Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “There is much to be said for an emissions trading scheme. It was, after all, the mechanism for emission reduction ultimately chosen by the Howard government.”

— Tony Abbott

102. “If people are going to do things which have certain consequences that they would rather avoid, they should do whatever they need to avoid the consequences.”

— Tony Abbott

103. “I think it’s time for the Prime Minister to stop making excuses and to start governing.”

— Tony Abbott

104. “Part of my role, I suppose, is to run government business in the House of Representatives, and try to ensure that people know exactly what’s going on in the Chamber is an important part of that.”

— Tony Abbott

105. “I’m not running for canonisation.”

— Tony Abbott

106. “The only party which is going to increase taxes after the election is the Labor Party.”

— Tony Abbott

107. “When the world is in trouble, Australia responds. Australia is a good, global citizen.”

— Tony Abbott

108. “Here we go again, a government which is making yet more excuses for yet more failure when it comes to getting our budgetary situation right.”

— Tony Abbott

109. “I can’t promise that I won’t continue to embarrass people.”

— Tony Abbott

110. “I would not want to see any relaxation of the law prohibiting human cloning.”

— Tony Abbott

111. “I just think that this whole issue of creating potential human life, not to give life, but to give the scientists a bit more of a leg-up, is fraught with danger.”

— Tony Abbott

112. “Well, Michael, we will be telling the people of Australia in good time before the next election exactly what they can expect from us. No surprises, no excuses. They will be our watch words going into the election and afterwards, should we form a government.”

— Tony Abbott

113. “I was pointing out the depth of the friendship between Australia and Indonesia and the fact that Australia has been there for Indonesia when Indonesia has been in difficulty.”

— Tony Abbott

114. “And a government that accepts that it will be judged more by its deeds than by its mere words.”

— Tony Abbott

115. “Australia would play its role in taking displaced people from the Syrian conflict.”

— Tony Abbott

116. “Now if you are condemned to life on welfare, I’m not so sure that being in a bigger welfare village is that much better than being in a smaller welfare village.”

— Tony Abbott

117. “I try to treat people as people and not put them in pigeonholes.”

— Tony Abbott

118. “I’m not really managing the work-life balance, I’m just accepting that the work increases and the ordinary life has to decrease when you’re the prime minister.”

— Tony Abbott

119. “Putting labels on people is so counter-productive. Most of us on some issues could be considered conservative, on other issues could be considered progressive, on other issues might be thought of as being moderate, on other issues might be thought of as being rather forthright.”

— Tony Abbott

120. “I think leadership is knowing what you want to achieve and then purposefully and sensibly taking steps to achieve it, remembering always that you have got to bring people with you if you are seeking to be a successful political leader.”

— Tony Abbott

121. “And the commitment that I’ve been giving to the Australian people is that there’ll be no surprises and no excuses under a Coalition government.”

— Tony Abbott

122. “There are tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of people living in poverty and danger who might readily seek to enter a Western country if the opportunity is there.”

— Tony Abbott

123. “There will be no overall increase in the tax burden whatsoever.”

— Tony Abbott

124. “Labor has come out with a series of proposals to increase taxes, including taxes on people across Australia saving for their retirement, he has actually identified so far zero dollars in spending reductions.”

— Tony Abbott

125. “I feel a little uncomfortable at being asked the sorts of questions that other Catholics in public life tend not to be asked.”

— Tony Abbott

126. “We’ve got to get the system right. That’s why we’ve got this root-and-branch reform under way.”

— Tony Abbott

127. “I mean there are many, many people in all sorts of different countries who don’t have a great life, who are subject to injustice. Are we obliged to take all of them who come here? I think the answer is ‘Not necessarily.’”

— Tony Abbott

128. “There is one fundamental message that we want to go out from this place to every nook and cranny of our country: There should be no new tax collection without an election.”

— Tony Abbott

129. “It is very important for our long-term economic future that the relationship with Japan, Korea and China, who are our three biggest trading partners, be ever stronger.”

— Tony Abbott

130. “There will be no surprises and no excuses from a Coalition government, Barrie.”

— Tony Abbott

131. “I’m confident that there are plenty of people who have the strength of character and the presence of mind to warn me of difficulties and alert me to opportunities.”

— Tony Abbott

132. “I see myself as a social conservative, but I think that there are lots of social institutions that produce beneficial reforms, like public hospitals, for instance, and schools.”

— Tony Abbott

133. “We are going to be a government of no surprises and no excuses; a government which keeps its commitments and a government which is straight and candid with the Australian people and that’s what we intend to do.”

— Tony Abbott

134. “What I would like to see is sufficiently good education and health services being delivered to Aboriginal people so that they are prepared and ready to leave and join the economic mainstream if that’s their choice.”

— Tony Abbott

135. “When you are challenging the young, they can come back at you with language of tremendous power and they are no respecters of sacred cows, you know, the young. There’s nothing politically correct about the average young Australian when it comes to use of language.”

— Tony Abbott

136. “We have already provided a strong humanitarian response to the problems in the Middle East and that response will be stronger within coming days.”

— Tony Abbott

137. “There’s a sense in which politicians can never work hard enough.”

— Tony Abbott

138. “Even potential human life needs to be treated with great respect.”

— Tony Abbott

139. “She had been forced to accept the idea that what was true, and what couldn’t possibly be, were ideas that depended on which life you lived – on which lives you lived.”

— Tony Abbott

140. “It seems that, notwithstanding the dramatic increases in manmade CO2 emissions over the last decade, the world’s warming has stopped.”

— Tony Abbott

141. “A government that says what it means, and means what it says.”

— Tony Abbott

142. “Both Mum and Dad were converts to Catholicism, and normally if you convert to Catholicism you have thought about it more than someone who just grew up with it, taking it for granted.”

— Tony Abbott

143. “We are looking at what more we can do. As well as a strong security response we need a strong humanitarian one.”

— Tony Abbott

144. “My commitment to the forgotten families of Australia is to ease your cost of living pressure.”

— Tony Abbott

145. “I don’t bring religion into the square.”

— Tony Abbott

146. “I don’t think my religious convictions should be held against me.”

— Tony Abbott

147. “This is a government which is proposing to put at risk our manufacturing industry, to penalise struggling families, to make a tough situation worse for millions of households right around Australia. And for what? To make not a scrap of difference to the environment any time in the next 1000 years.”

— Tony Abbott

148. “The Liberal Party has dealt with the spill motion and now this matter is behind us, we think that when you elect a government, when you elect a prime minister, you deserve to keep that government and that prime minister until you have a chance to change your mind.”

— Tony Abbott

149. “Every prime minister has a whole series of networks, and there are official formal networks and there are unofficial informal networks. I’m lucky in that I have good official formal networks, starting with my own office, the leadership group, the cabinet and the party room.”

— Tony Abbott

150. “Well, I’m not saying that an emissions tax is ever going to be good policy.”

— Tony Abbott