In 2010, on the ABC’s 7.30 program, he made the bizarre qualification that what he said spontaneously couldn’t be taken as his formal position: ‘In the heat of discussion you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark. Which is one of the reasons why the statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth [are] those carefully prepared, scripted remarks.’ In a comment that wasn’t off-the-cuff, Abbott was exempting himself from being held to his own words – a privilege he never gave prime minister Julia Gillard.
