Only in Australia would the ex-prime minister steal your wave.
Student Ivy Thomas, 17, was snapped surfing alongside Tony Abbott at Tea Tree beach at Noosa, Queensland, on Easter Monday.
“I paddled out and he was just sitting there on his board, waiting for a wave. It was so bizarre,” Thomas said.
But when the wave came, surfing etiquette dictates that Thomas had right of way. Photographer Bailey Eldering caught her less-than-impressed facial expression as Abbott dropped in on her.
“Because I was on the inside of him and it’s a right-hand break, I technically had right of way,” she said. “That was supposed to be my wave – but I don’t really mind.
“I saw that he was going for it as well, but I wasn’t going to call him off, like, ‘That’s my wave!’
“You can’t do that to an ex-prime minister.”
Abbott didn’t speak to her, Thomas said, but “he kind of smiled at me as we paddled out. He knew that he’d dropped in on me.”
Abbott – the MP for Warringah since 1994 – is regularly seen surfing on Sydney’s northern beaches.
Thomas, from the Gold Coast, was in Noosa on holiday with her family for the Easter weekend. She had no idea that the moment had been caught on camera until after Eldering sent her the photos.
“It was such a fluke that there was a photographer out there as well. I’m so glad there’s evidence because I think no one would have believed me.”
She said she wasn’t interested in politics. “I’m only 17 – I haven’t really had to think about that. I kind of zone out a little bit.
“But I see Tony Abbott on TV all the time, even though he’s not prime minister. I’m stoked that he’s out there surfing and having fun like everyone else.”
