Politics

Tony Abbott Steps Up To Fight For Portaloos, Because He Too Is Full Of Shit

"Manly portaloo" is basically a synonym for Tony Abbott, let's be real.

Tony Abbott and a portaloo

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Tony Abbott has donned the infamous budgie smugglers once again, and taken to camera to let us in on his top policy priority for 2019: portaloos.

Yes, you read that correctly. In the lead-up to a federal election that could just end our illustrious former Prime Minister’s parliamentary career, Abbott’s focused on shit. Specifically, Manly’s shit — in a video posted to Twitter yesterday, he lamented the fact that Sydney’s Manly Beach is so popular, yet so devoid of actual functioning toilets.

Now, don’t get us wrong — we’re huge toilet fans ourselves. It’s just that the relative abundance of portaloos at Manly is probably not a key issue in federal politics in 2019, a year which is already full of enormous and pressing issues to tackle.

Like climate change, for example, which is almost certainly a greater threat to the longevity of Manly Beach than its plumbing. Just a thought.

But no, Tony wants what Tony wants, and apparently that’s for the country to behold him standing shirtless and soaking wet in front of a portaloo, telling us why he feels so strongly about it.

Exactly which voter demographic this is supposed to appeal to is unclear, but you can watch it below and see if it moves something in you.

The whole portaloo thing isn’t even the shittiest take Abbott’s had in the past 24 hours. Just this morning he tried to argue against giving doctors oversight on when asylum seekers receive medical transfers from Nauru. In essence, he seems to think that letting medical experts advise on pressing medical issues is not as important as keeping Australia’s offshore processing regime ticking along.

When you hear him say things like that, the idea of commemorating him with a public toilet actually starts making sense.