Very sad day for Australia to see this in the press about the Prime Minister

[alexander*beetle]

These comments on the Pravda website. 

• I seriously hope President Putin washes his hands and sterilizes them after touching the grubby paw of Abbott. Tony Abbott displays a degree of insolence, arrogance and incompetence.
• Once again, we see a country whose political class is divorced from the collective will of its people yet we see a politician who thinks it is cool to be rude, insolent, insulting, impolite, impertinent, unpolished, gross, unpleasant and downright impudent.

Many more comments too. I'm sure many Australians, though not all, are very disappointed to have our country's leader spoken of this way. I've read lots of derogatory comments from various news websites from around the world and it seems he has trashed the position and how we are viewed by many other countries. And I stress not every country is knocking him but enough to know that he is not popular. 

"Tony Abbott said today that he will "shirtfront" Russian president Vladimir Putin when the pair meet at the G20 meeting in Brisbane next month."  Is this seriously how we treat other world leaders? What happened to open dialogue and discussion? 

We were once so admired for our leaders as statesmen, from both sides of politics. Tony Abbott has brought much criticism and shame and embarrassment to the position. No matter what side of politics, the position of Prime Minister should be held with respect but when we have one in the position who bullies and insults world leaders, then it is their prerogative to comment.

It is going to take some doing to win back the respect we once held.  

[debra9275]

http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/12-10-2014/128776-tony_abbott-0/

I agree with you ab

to see TA on tonight's news saying he wants to shirt front Putin was disgraceful coming from a PM I thought

as you say, it used to be a postion that was held in respect, not any more

[boris1gary]

with abbotts history I suppose nobody should be surprised at his shoddy, stupid and disrespectful behaviour and attitude but he has sunk to even lower depths than I thought possible. He seems to be in some kind of time warp where he thinks he's still at uni, running around being a right wing thug and smirking and giggling about it - odd.  

[freshwater-2]

Ooooo......I bet Putin is quivering with fear at the prospect of coming up against our bogan PM.

One of the problems is that our PM thinks that the rest of the world gives a hoot about him or what he thinks..

[fiestas*girl]

school boy words from a wanna be trying to prove himself

Tenyabbit is a disgrace to our nation

[channys_mum]

What does shirtfront mean.

[kilroy_is_here]

At least he has courage to confront him and demand answers for those who died and their families, the wording wasn't wonderful but at least the intent was clear , personally bill shortens response wasn't any better

[raptor_rebooted]

These comments on the Pravda website.

[raptor_rebooted]

ok - now that i have picked myself

off the floor -

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten says Vladimir Putin should "show enough conscience" not to come to Australia for next month's G20 summit, accusing the Russian President of "rubbing our faces" in the aftermath of MH17 by making the trip.

Mr Shorten on Monday scaled up his criticism of Mr Putin, whose attendance at the economic forum in Brisbane was confirmed by the government on Sunday.

Speaking to reporters in Melbourne, Mr Shorten said he understood the government could not act unilaterally to prevent Mr Putin from attending an international conference.

But he said he believed most Australians would not welcome the Russian President's visit and "laying out the red carpet" was not the way to "deal with an international bully".

There's plenty of evidence to indicate indirect if not direct Russian involvement in the shooting down of this plane which saw hundreds of souls snatched away from their families, with no justification or rationale," Mr Shorten said.

"How is it that the President of the Russian Federation Putin will thumb his nose at the rest of the world, go wherever he wants without there being any repercussions or any cooperation with the independent investigation as to how this happened?

"I believe Putin knows more about what happened with MH17 than he's let on."

Mr Shorten added that he would not meet with the Russian leader while he was in Australia.

He said it would be to Prime Minister Tony Abbott's credit if something came from talks with Mr Putin while he was in Australia that assisted the investigation into the downing of MH17.

"I wish that Putin would at least show enough conscience to be able to not come to Australia because he's rubbing our faces in it," Mr Shorten said.

[alexander*beetle]

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@kilroy_is_here wrote:
At least he has courage to confront him and demand answers for those who died and their families, the wording wasn't wonderful but at least the intent was clear , personally bill shortens response wasn't any better

---

Agree that Shorten's response was no better. The issue I have with Abbott's comments regarding the flight that was shot down is that the investigation is still ongoing. Russia is itself calling for the investigation to speed up. Abbott blamed Russia within hours of it happening and is calling him a murderer. All quite justified if the evidence is concrete but it's simply not at the moment. It may well turn out to be the case but he has damaged relations before knowing all the facts and other world leaders condemned him blaming Russia too soon.