Earlier this week, the book Abbott: The Defining Speeches, which I edited with the former prime minister’s speechwriter Paul Ritchie, was launched in Sydney. As we embarked upon the task, I realised quickly that the true image of our Prime Minister was, and is, profoundly different from the jaundiced caricature that surfaced in the pages of some of our press.  

Far from the goofy, out-of-touch and hyper-partisan persona manufactured by much of the media, I encountered not simply another politician, but a statesman.