Trump election proves we ‘can’t be ruled by polls’: Tony Abbott

Tony Abbott, who was removed as PM more than a year ago after 30 negative Newspoll results, cited the shock election result as an example of why “we should not be ruled by polls”.

Speaking on ABC radio Friday morning the former Liberal leader likened himself to Donald Trump who was “constantly failing in the polls”, and said commentators had been wrong to doubt his success.

Mr Abbott said it was true that Mr Trump had said some “very gross things”, and said people had to hope those were “out of character outbursts”.

“In the end people are not voting for a saint or even for a role model, and this was someone who they thought will be strong and someone who they thought would address their real concerns,” he said.

The now backbencher acknowledged there are a lot of Australians feeling dissatisfied with the current political system in Australia, as in America, and that this year’s federal election — which followed his ousting — reflected that.

“You only have to look at the result of the last election, 25 per cent voted for other than the Coalition and the Labor Party, five per cent voted informal, 10 per cent didn’t even show up despite the risk of a fine,” he said.

“Something like 40 per cent of the population of the population refused to support either of the two parties which have governed our country since federation.

“So we have a problem. More and more people are feeling less and less represented by mainstream political parties.”

Mr Abbott went on to warn that without “strong, centre-right” leaders, voters would seek leadership from alternative politicians and parties.

“If people are unhappy with the conventional standard bearers, they will find new standard bearers,” he said.

“If you don’t have a strong centre-right party, a strong and sensible conservative party, people who are looking for what might broadly be described as conservative positions will find other people to represent them. This is something that mainstream politicians ignore at their peril.”

Mr Abbott said like the Trump election, the surprise Brexit vote also proved parties shouldn’t be ruled by polls.

“Both the UK election of last year, the Brexit vote of this year and the Trump vote this year are a good sign that we should not be ruled by polls, because what we’ve seen in all three cases were people who weren’t upfront with the pollsters because they saw the kind of excoriation that the non politically correct were getting and obviously didn’t want to tell pollsters what they really thought,” he said.

Mr Abbott refused to say whether he believed his party had made the wrong choice in dumping him following poor polling results, but managed to make a subtle dig at his successor.

“It’s quite interesting if you actually listening to the Prime Minister there’s been a lot less talk about innovation and agility and the economy, and a lot more talk about national security, border security,” he said.

“What you’ve seen from Malcolm Turnbull post-election is a much more orthodox centre-right leader.”

In a separate radio interview, Mr Turnbull denied the independent vote at the last election was noticeably different to previous years.

“There hasn’t been a huge increase in votes for other than the two big parties,” he told Neil Mitchell on 3AW radio.

But Mr Turnbull did concede in this political climate it is important to provide steady, secure cabinet government.

Originally published as Tony Abbott’s take on Trump