Tony Abbott’s Bombshell History Book: Former PM Reveals Shocking Truths About Australia’s Dark Past
- Australia’s former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has written a explosive new book that re-examines the nation’s history and reveals disturbing episodes from its colonial past.
- In “Australia: A History”, Abbott argues that the country has broken with its convict past to become one of the “freest, fairest and most prosperous countries on earth.”
- However, the book also delves into the nation’s dark history, including massacres, poisonings, and frontier conflicts that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Aboriginal people.
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has sparked controversy with his new book, “Australia: A History”, which presents a re-examination of the nation’s past and reveals shocking truths about its colonial history. In an exclusive interview with news.com.au, Abbott defended his book, saying it was a “love letter to Australia” that aimed to present a balanced view of the country’s history.
“I think there’s a fundamental egalitarianism about Australia,” Abbott said. “The fact that, if you go back to the early days, the convicts would often, the instant they got to Australia, be given a ticket of leave, and they would just go out, and they would work equally with their assigned ‘masters’, in inverted commas.”
However, Abbott’s book also grapples with the nation’s dark history, including the treatment of Aboriginal people. He examines the history of massacres and poisonings in the days of the early settlers, including the infamous Coutts episode, where a squatter poisoned flour that killed around 20 Aboriginal people near Grafton.
“The Coutts episode, which I talk about in the book, was an absolutely horrible episode where this squatter up near Grafton, after a bit of sheep spearing by the local people, which is all understandable under the circumstances, decided he would get even with them by poisoning flour, and some 20 people were killed,” Abbott said.
Despite highlighting such brutal episodes, Abbott argues that his book presents a balanced view of early Australian history. “The story of pastoral expansion, in early Australia, was a story of cooperation at least as much as it was of conflict, because almost none of the explorers or the early settlers would have been able to do anything much without a considerable measure of cooperation from the local Aboriginal people.”
Australia: A History will premiere on Sky News Australia at 7:30pm AEDT on Monday, October 13, airing nightly to Wednesday, October 15. Stream at SkyNews.com.au or download the Sky News Australia app.