Tony Abbott: statement on Jim Molan
Jim Molan will be remembered as a fearless patriot who served our country with distinction as a soldier and a senator.
Serving with the multinational force in Iraq, he probably had more personnel under his operational command than any Australian general since World War Two.
Subsequently, as a writer and then senator, he did his best to alert Australians to the dangers of strategic complacency.
His most recent book, Danger on Our Doorstop, written while he was under cancer treatment, should be compulsory reading for anyone concerned for our country’s security.
Not necessarily because of his opening scenario of a Pearl Harbour-style sneak attack on US facilities in the Western Pacific, including here in Australia, but for his clear-eyed view of the Beijing regime’s pursuit of global dominance, the catastrophic consequences of war in East Asia, and Australia’s military and psychological unreadiness for such challenges.
To give just one key example. At the first sign of fighting Australia’s essential oil imports would stop, yet we have scarcely 30 days of reserves on shore.
While very little has been done to address our lack of resilience, and with insufficient urgency, at least the government is beginning to tackle the yawning gaps in our military capability.
With our allies, it seems that Australia is helping to raise doubts in Beijing about whether Taiwan might be quite as friendless as it thought.
I think Jim deserves massive credit for helping to raise the costs to Beijing of any aggression across the Taiwan Straits.
Jim was never one to shirk a fight, including – if necessary – inside his own team.
When factionalism inside the NSW Liberal Party put him in an unwinnable position on the Senate ticket in 2019 he cheerfully campaigned for reelection in his own right and gained over 100,000 votes below the line.
When it really mattered he wasn’t afraid to take on the leadership in the party room.
He was also a leader of the movement to give the NSW Liberal Party membership a democratic voice over candidate selection which factional string pullers are still doing their best to thwart.
There are too few people in public life prepared to puck the prevailing orthodoxy. That’s why he will be so missed.
For Jim, the fight was never about him – always for the cause.
‘Say what you mean, do what you say.’ That’s how he lived his life and why it was so well lived.
