Abbott instituted the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption; founded the Medical Research Future Fund; and produced white papers on developing Northern Australia and the Agricultural Competitiveness.

[12] Due to Abbott's poor opinion polling and personal unpopularity, he was defeated by rival Malcolm Turnbull in a September 2015 leadership spill, and replaced as prime minister.

[36] In 1977, Abbott faced charges of common and indecent assault after allegedly groping trainee teacher Helen Wilson while she was making a speech at the College of Advanced Education in Kuring-gai, Sydney.

[4] According to biographer Michael Duffy, Abbott's involvement with ACM "strengthened his relationship with John Howard, who in 1994 suggested he seek pre-selection for a by-election in the seat of Warringah".

Abbott visited the victims of the bombings in hospital, and in his capacity as Health Minister organised for Australians who required lifesaving emergency surgery and hospitalisation to be flown to Singapore.

On 31 October, he apologised for saying "just because a person is sick doesn't mean that he is necessarily pure of heart in all things", after Bernie Banton, an asbestos campaigner and terminal mesothelioma sufferer, complained that Abbott was unavailable to collect a petition.

He recommended the establishment of local hospital and school boards to manage health and education,[89] and discussed family law reform, multiculturalism, climate change, and international relations.

[105][106][107][108] In March 2010, Abbott, announced a new policy initiative to provide for six months paid parental leave, funded by an increase in corporate tax by 1.7 percentage points on all taxable company income above $5 million.

In April he set out on a 9-day charity bike ride between Melbourne and Sydney, the annual Pollie Pedal, generating political debate about whether he should have committed so much time to physical fitness.

[117] The replacement of a first-term prime minister was unusual in Australian political history and the Rudd-Gillard rivalry remained a vexed issue for the Gillard government into the 2010 election and its subsequent term.

[132][133][134] The close result was lauded by former prime minister John Howard, who wrote in 2010 that Abbott had shifted the dynamic of Australian politics after coming to the leadership in 2009 and "deserves hero status among Liberals".

[136] Abbott announced his shadow ministry on 14 September, with few changes to senior positions, but with the return of former leadership rival Malcolm Turnbull, whom he selected as Communications spokesman.

[143] In April 2011, Abbott proposed consultation with Indigenous people over a bipartisan Federal Government intervention in Northern Territory towns including Alice Springs, Katherine and Tennant Creek, which would cover such areas as police numbers and school attendance in an effort to address what he described as a "failed state" situation.

[156] In November 2012, Abbott launched his fourth book, A Strong Australia, a compilation of nine of his "landmark speeches" from 2012, including his budget reply and National Press Club addresses.

[174] On 2 November 2015, new prime minister Malcolm Turnbull announced that knights and dames had been removed from the Order of Australia, as "not appropriate in our modern honours system", although existing titles would not be affected.

[179] Prime Minister Abbott described the leadership motion as a "near death experience" and declared that "good government starts today", promising to consult his colleagues more, to shy away from his so-called "captain's calls" and to reduce the role of his chief of staff Peta Credlin.

[3] However, by September, the Royal Australian Air Force was readying a wing of F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, along with an E-7A Wedgetail and KC-30, for operations in Eastern Syria, making strikes against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

[182] In July 2015, Bronwyn Bishop, who had been successfully nominated by Abbott in November 2013 for the position of Speaker of the House, came under intense media scrutiny after details of her use of taxpayer-funded political entitlements were made public, including chartering a helicopter flight between Melbourne and Geelong to attend a Liberal party fundraiser.

"[206] He defended the Abbott government's 2014 Budget measures and called on future prime ministers to follow his commitment to spending a week a year in indigenous communities.

[211][212][213] In February 2017, he told a book launch that the Turnbull government was perceived by many conservatives as "Labor lite", and risked a "drift to defeat" at the upcoming election if it failed to improve its performance.

He will be joined on the board by other senior political figures, including Patricia Hewitt, a former UK Secretary of State for Health, Daniel Hannan, a former Member of the European Parliament, and Linda Yueh, a writer and broadcaster.

News of the appointment prompted UK Opposition politicians to question his suitability for the job because of comments previously made by Abbott about climate change, women and same-sex marriage.

[255] Rising to support the passage of the Gillard government's historic Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Bill through the House of Representatives in 2013, Abbott said:[256] Australia is a blessed country.

In short, we need to atone for the omissions and for the hardness of heart of our forebears to enable us all to embrace the future as a united people.In November 2012, Abbott flew to Alice Springs to back Aboriginal Country Liberal Party (CLP) MLA Alison Anderson to run in the federal seat of Lingiari and to become the first Indigenous woman to enter Parliament.

In August 2015, he rejected the request of Aboriginal leaders Patrick Dodson and Noel Pearson for the federal government to fund a series of Indigenous-only conventions on the wording for the referendum, citing concerns it could be potentially divisive.

[289] Early on in his prime ministership, the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly passed the Marriage Equality (Same Sex) Act 2013, a bill to allow same-sex couples to legally marry.

[292] When the Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Act 2017, which posed the question of whether same-sex couples should be able to marry, was presented to members of parliament, Abbott abstained from voting.

[300] In 2011, he called for the NBN to be scrapped entirely with funding diverted to assist with recovery efforts following the Queensland floods, stating "The National Broadband Network is a luxury that Australia cannot now afford.

"[301] With Malcolm Turnbull as Shadow Minister for Communications and Broadband, the Liberal/National Coalition proposed an alternative - The Multi-Technology Mix (MTM), which heavily utilised Fibre to the Node (FttN) technology - in the lead up to the 2013 Australian federal election.

During a speech, he stated that he wants to help Taiwan end its isolation from global affairs and reaffirmed Australia's solidarity with the country amid increasing tensions with China.