Tony Abbott's use of a Washington Post interview to brand his Labor predecessors as ''wacko'' and ''embarrassing'' could set back his working relationship with the Obama adminstration, a leading US commentator says.
Norman Ornstein, an author and political scientist with the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, said he ''winced'' when he read the interview in which Mr Abbott put the boot into the Rudd-Gillard government in unusually strong language for a foreign interview.
''It really does violate a basic principle of diplomacy to drag in your domestic politics when you go abroad,'' Dr Ornstein said. ''It certainly can't help in building a bond of any sort with President Obama to rip into a party, government and - at least implicitly - leader, with whom Obama has worked so closely.
''Perhaps you can chalk it up to a rookie mistake. But it is a pretty big one.''
Politicians around the world typically refrain from engaging in fierce domestic political argument when they are speaking to an overseas audience.
Dr Ornstein, a resident scholar at the AEI - one of Washington's oldest think tanks - was one of Foreign Policy magazine's 100 ''top global thinkers'' in 2012.
In the interview, Mr Abbott told The Washington Post that the former Labor government's conduct was ''a circus'' and was ''scandalously wasteful''.
''It was an embarrassing spectacle and I think Australians are relieved they are gone,'' he said.
Asked about Labor's plan to extend fibre to every household under the national broadband network, Mr Abbott said: ''Welcome to the wonderful, wacko world of the former government.''
Julia Gillard in particular forged what observers say was a warm and constructive relationship with Mr Obama, which included the deal to station US marines in Darwin. She was one of just 12 world leaders whose calls Mr Obama returned personally after they had called to congratulate him on his 2012 re-election.
Former diplomat and senior public servant John Menadue said it remained to be seen whether Mr Abbott could ''make the transition from a critic in opposition and an attack dog to a responsible and constructive prime minister''.
In 2007, then prime minister John Howard caused an international stir when he said al-Qaeda in Iraq would be praying for an Obama victory in the presidential race - a criticism of Mr Obama's plan to bring US troops home from Iraq.
Meanwhile, the White House has refused to comment on - or rule out - whether the US National Security Agency has ever tapped the phones of any Australian prime minister.
In the wake of revelations that the NSA may have bugged German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone, Fairfax Media asked the US government whether it could rule out ever bugging Australian leaders.
National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said: ''We are not going to comment publicly on every specific alleged intelligence activity, and as a matter of policy we have made clear that the United States gathers foreign intelligence of the type gathered by all nations.''
so am i , when albanese gets stuck into them. its obvious from the constant references shorten scares you btw. 
Albo can open up with this
Did the Prime Minister turn a profit from Pollie Pedal?
inSh
Julie Owens MP: โI donโt believe that you can call it charity work if the taxpayer is paying your salary to do it โ let alone if you make a profit out of it on the back of $350 in travelling allowance a day.โ
No one begrudges the blood and sweat that Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his fellow politicians have shed while riding thousands of kilometres in the annual Pollie Pedal cycling fundraising tours โ or the more than $2.5 million they have raised for charities since it started in 1998.
But what distinguishes Abbott from the dozens of politicians who have ridden the Pollie Pedal rides over the past 15 years is that he appears to be the only politician to have claimed travelling allowances and other expenses for his participation.
He may even have made a profit from the event http://blogs.crikey.com.au/northern/2013/10/25/did-the-prime-minister-turn-a-profit-from-pollie-peda...
โCheap at twice the priceโ. The Prime Minister and Big Pharma
Max Markson told The Northern Myth that if AMGEN was paying $80,000 a year to have Tony Abbott promote their brand that it was sponsorship that was โcheap at twice the priceโ.
Roll back to first light on 8 September 2013. Tony Abbott, Australiaโs Prime Minister elect, emerges barefoot into the early morning light. He is in his cycling gear and squats to put on his cleated cycling shoes then walks to his waiting road-bike in that curious clickety-clack heel-bound duck walk that cyclists have when off their bike.
No-one looks cool walking in those shoes but not being cool has never bothered Abbott.
Like half the country I was nursing a slight hangover and was watching the early news from the east coast. Abbott was in neck-to-knee lyrca emblazoned with sponsors for his annual charity fund-raiser Pollie Pedal, which his office runs in conjunction with Carers Australia.
Pollie Pedalโs sponsors include Gerry Ryanโs Jayco caravans, a law firm, a book chain and three pharmaceutical companies โ alphapharm, Roche and Pfizer. Running across Abbottโs chest in bright blue and down the outside of each thigh is the logo โAMGENโ.
So who or what is AMGEN?
The Australian branch of AMGEN โ the worldโs largest biotechnology company โ has been the major sponsor of Pollie Pedal since 2007. In 2013 that sponsorship was valued at $80,000 while alphapharm, Roche and Pfizer would each have coughed between $20,000 and $50,000 as โsupportingโ and โmajorโ sponsors respectively.
So far so good โ there is nothing controversial about large companies tipping their hard-earned in to assist worthy causes. But what happens when one of those companies admits to criminal conduct and pays a large fine to settle Federal and State lawsuits in the United States? http://blogs.crikey.com.au/northern/2013/09/13/cheap-at-twice-the-price-the-prime-minister-and-big-p...
