He said the new tier of honours would be an “important grace note” in Australia’s national life, extended at his recommendation, and the Queen’s approval, “to Australians of extraordinary and pre-eminent achievement and merit”.īuried in the official paperwork, barely noticed, was that the honour could be bestowed on non-Australians, too.Įyes rolled, satirists made hay, and it seemed that every liberal on Twitter had given themselves the title “sir” or “dame”. Surely his party could not deny him this one, minor indulgence? Disciplined messaging had repackaged a man once nicknamed “the mad monk” into prime ministerial material. His staff, it was later reported, had advised that the decision would be “fucking stupid”.īut Abbott, a former trainee priest and leader of the monarchist lobby, had spent the past four years repressing his ideological impulses. His cabinet colleagues had not been consulted. ( Calls for her resignation – though the knighthood was Abbott’s choice alone – swiftly followed.)Ībbott’s political opponents saw it as the perfect symbol of the prime minister’s extremism, the same regressive worldview he brought to bear on health, education and the rights of women, minorities and refugees.įor the general public it seemed to confirm a suspicion that the man they had elected prime minister was a strange creature indeed.Ībbott had reintroduced knighthoods in a shock announcement in March 2014. For the prime minister’s cabinet colleagues, it was about Abbott’s aversion to consultation, the iron grip exercised by his chief of staff, Peta Credlin. Support for a republic fell to a 20-year low in 2014 with the dazzling tour of William, Kate and baby George later that year.īut the decision to knight Prince Philip was a kind of Rorschach test. But the alternative model put to the people – with a head of state elected by parliament – divided the republican movement and failed to sell a risk-averse public. “Time to scrap all honours everywhere, including UK.”Īustralians had their chance to ditch the monarchy in 1999. “Abbott knighthood a joke and embarrassment,” he tweeted. But this is just such a very, very, very stupid decision, so damaging that it could be fatal,” the conservative commentator Andrew Bolt told Sydney radio.Įven media baron Rupert Murdoch, whose tabloids had openly championed Abbott during the 2013 election, weighed in. gosh, I didn’t mean to be that strong because I actually like Tony Abbott very much. “This is just such a pathetically stupid. “It’s Australia Day, we’re not a bunch of tossers, let’s get it right.”Ībbott’s conservative allies in the media, too, were shocked. “Happy April Fool’s day, everybody, as I saw in the paper reading Prince Philip is now a knight,” he said. The chief minister of the Northern Territory, Adam Giles, didn’t even wait for journalists to ask before offering his view. An unnamed cabinet minister called it “total craziness”. Members of the prime minister’s Liberal party barely hid their derision. “You wouldn’t report what’s sprayed up on the walls of buildings.”īut even then it was becoming clear the Sir Prince Philip thing had touched something much deeper. “Social media is kind of like electronic graffiti, and I think that in the media, you make a big mistake to pay too much attention to social media. “I’ll leave social media to its own devices,” he said. Within hours, Abbott was being asked if he had made a serious mistake. Was it a hoax? Journalists gleefully passed around lists of the prince’s most egregious faux pas. In pictures that morning, standing between the national seal and a portrait of the Queen at an official ceremony, Abbott looked confident, relaxed.īut Twitter was already roiling with the “Sir Prince Philip” news. The night before, Abbott had won plaudits by awarding Rosie Batty, a domestic violence survivor of unimaginable strength, the Australian of the Year award.