Oh This Old Thing? Just Tony Abbott’s 1983 Academic Transcript From Oxford University

You might remember James West’s name from the years he spent as assistant producer of Hack, the youth and current affairs program on triple j. He’s been living in New York for the past while, where he’s senior producer of Climate Desk (a collaboration between The Guardian, Slate, The Atlantic, Mother Jones, Wired and more), and a journalist for Mother Jones magazine.

Earlier this year he was researching Tony Abbott for a potential story, and contacted Oxford University for an academic transcript of his time as a Rhodes Scholar — attainable through the UK’s open records laws.

“By themselves — and in the context of an election campaign — the results didn’t shed much light on what we already knew about Abbott’s time at Queen’s College (his studiousness, or his interests), so I decided not to write a story,” he said in a post on Facebook over the weekend, which is slowly going viral. “But since he has now become Australia’s Prime Minister (and Queen’s duly released his results as a matter of public interest), I see no reason not to enter them into the record, unadorned, for whatever they say about the man who now leads the country.”

With West’s permission, and without further comment:

[UPDATE: As a general guideline A = first class; B= 2:1; C= 2:2 and D= 3rd class.]

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In related news, a Nielsen poll published in Fairfax this morning has Bill Shorten making the strongest debut of any opposition leader since Kevin ’07, leading the Coalition 52% to 48% on the two-party-preferred vote. Less than half of voters approve of how the Government is handling asylum seekers, and 50% disapprove.

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Feature image via pm.gov.au