Having read David Marr’s Quarterly Essay exposé on Tony Abbott, I am convinced more than ever that the driving force behind Abbott’s almost fanatical obsession to be PM is to turn this country into a Catholic version of Islamic fundamentalism. Anyone who lauds and worships Bob Santamaria is someone who must be feared and loathed by every sane thinking person in this country.

Marr relates Abbott’s deeply held belief in Catholicism, which in turn has festered his paranoid loathing of gay people and people who don’t agree with him; his aggressive bullying attitude toward women and his fear and hatred of anyone different to his white Australia paradise (refugees). It indicates a man who has deep seated personal problems and whose view of the world is one in which progressive policies hold no place. His extreme right wing philosophy is simply frightening.

Not once in this current furore regarding his personal sins of the past has Abbott come out and said “I abhor any sort of violence towards women.” He has been far too busy defending himself, saying: “I can’t recall it happening” and then a week later “It didn’t happen”. He is, let’s face it, lying to cover his arse — not once thinking about publicly deploring the sin he is accused of perpetrating.

That’s because it is all about him.

As Marr writes, Abbott thinks he can just go to the confessional, confess his sins, say three Hail Marys and all will be forgiven. I may not be God, but I sure as hell won’t forgive him — as I am sure thousands of Australian women won’t either.

Male journalists ­– some predictably – have come to his defence. Greg Sheridan in an extraordinary rant on ABC radio and Tony Wright of Fairfax merely calling him “a dill”.

Yes, Tony Wright, men who threateningly intimidate, punch walls beside a woman’s head, pathetically ridicules her chosen words for which to be addressed as a Chair of a committee, daily uses “warlike” words in order to press his political argument, happily stands in front of vile vicious placards regarding the Prime Minister is only a “dill”.

I would call him a thug.

Sheridan ranted like a main possessed about Labor daring to question Abbott’s honesty and challenging him to explain himself, but gleefully joining in with the Liberals and other mainstream media in the aggressive hounding of the Prime Minister when it came for her to explain supposed past impropriety.

Gillard had the strength and moral fortitude to front a packed media conference for an hour or so and allowed the press to ask the hardest questions they wanted of her. She answered every one of them with credible explanations for everything that had occurred during that heady time as a lawyer with Slater and Gordon. She held nothing back.

Abbott hid from the media for a week, though, never showing his face, then finally went on a frilly morning TV show – where he knew he wouldn’t get the “hard” questioning – to deny his punching of the wall beside the head of Barbara Ramjan ever happened.

Bullshit.

I, on behalf of every thinking woman – and man – in the nation, call on Abbott to front his moment of truth in an hour long press conference allowing journalists to ask him every “hard” question they can think of; although, knowing many male journos, I doubt that will happen — they will pussy foot around the issue like the sychopantic fellow misogynists they are. I would hope though that every female journalist including Michelle Grattan will come out firing on all cylinders in defence of their fellow sisters. I’d like to see that.

Not doing that will only reinforce that they all see threatening intimidating behavior toward women as “trivial”.

If Abbott won’t, or can’t, do this then I call on him to resign. Not just as Opposition leader but as a Member of Parliament, for as far as I am concerned there is no place in Parliament for an aggressive, bullying, dummy spitting misogynist who seeks power for power’s sake and who wants to take this nation into the depths of extreme religious Catholicism where women are second-class citizens, where people cannot make their own choices about how to live, love and die, and where we become not only the 51st State of the USA but also an enclave of the Vatican.

That is Abbott’s utopia.

He must explain himself to the Australian people.

If he doesn’t, we will all be left to believe what 85 per cent of the population already believe.

That…

If it looks like a thug, walks like a thug and talks like a thug … it’s a thug.

Abbott’s Utopia

meanwhile ….

Fairfax reports today a leading barrister confirming Barbara Ramjan’s claim about Tony Abbott’s violence, aggression and intimidation of her at Sydney University. What they don’t report is that Tony Abbott’s misogyny bigotry and bullying has continued to the current day. Managing editor David Donovan fills in the gaps.

Fairfax reports today that a Sydney barrister has confirmed claims Tony Abbott put his head within an inch of her and punched a wall on either side of Barbara Ramjan’s head, when she defeated him for the Sydney University student union presidency in 1975.

A Sydney barrister, David Patch, has corroborated a woman’s claim that Tony Abbott behaved in an intimidatory fashion when she beat him in a vote for Sydney University Student Representative Council president in 1977.

Mr Abbott has denied the account from Barbara Ramjan – published in David Marr’s Quarterly Essay, ”Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott” – that he came within an inch of her nose and punched the wall on either side of her head.

But Mr Patch, who won the SRC presidency in 1975, said he had been Ms Ramjan’s campaign manager in 1977, and she had told him about the Abbott incident immediately after it happened.

Sydney barrister David Patch has corroborated a woman’s claim that Tony Abbott behaved in an intimidatory fashion.

He writes in today’s Age: ”I did not see the incident, but I was nearby. The count had just finished. Barbara found me. She is a small woman, and Tony Abbott was (and is) a strong man. She was very shaken, scared and angry. She told me that Tony Abbott had come up to her, put his face in her face, and punched the wall on either side of her head.

In the report, Patch details more disquieting information about Abbott’s underlying misogyny and bigotry:

The wall-punching event was not an isolated one, he writes. ”As President, Ramjan chaired SRC meetings. She did not want to be called ‘Mr Chairman’, but preferred ‘Chairperson’. But for an entire year Abbott called Ramjan ‘Chairthing’ whenever he addressed her at SRC meetings.

”The gender-based disrespect for her office and her person is remarkably similar to the disrespectful way that Abbott treats the Prime Minister, and her office, today.”

Mr Patch says he knew Mr Abbott well at the time, beating him for an election for student member of the University Senate. ”Although he was an active member of a fundamentalist political movement with a religious base (the DLP and the National Civic Council led by Bob Santamaria), it was his personally offensive behaviour which stood out.

”He was always (verbally) attacking gays and feminists and lefties. You certainly knew what he was against – the trouble was that you couldn’t figure out what he was in favour of! Once again, the parallels with the way he operates today are, to those who knew him then, quite remarkable.”

For Independent Australia readers, none of this information will have come as a surprise, as we have been investigating all these aspects of Tony Abbott’s character for some time; only now does it seem that the starstruck mainstream press is finally catching up.

Tony Abbott: University Bigot & Bully - & Still Is Today