Abbott says he will "shirt-front" Vladimir Putin over the MH17 attack,

Tony Abbott promises to confront Vladimir Putin over MH17 'murdered Australians' at G20 summit

Australian prime minister Tony Abbott says he will "shirt-front" Vladimir Putin over the MH17 attack, deploying an Australian sports term for a physical challenge

Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney

10:39AM BST 13 Oct 2014

Tony Abbott, the Australian prime minister, says he will "shirt-front" Russian leader Vladimir Putin when the two meet next month, deploying an Australian football term which describes aggressively grabbing an opponent or knocking them to the ground.

Referring to the deaths of 38 Australians in the MH17 plane attack, Mr Abbott said: "I'm going to shirt-front Mr Putin – you bet I am. I am going to be saying to Mr Putin 'Australians were murdered'."

Mr Abbott was one of the world's most vocal leaders in criticising Russia over the MH17 plane attack and has faced calls to bar Mr Putin from attending the G20 Summit in Brisbane next month.

Signalling that he will confront Mr Putin rather than ban him, Mr Abbott said: "There will be a lot of tough conversations with Russia and I suspect the conversation I have with Mr Putin will be the toughest conversation of all."

The "shirt-front" comment triggered conjecture as to whether Mr Abbott intends to knock Mr Putin down via an unsuspecting challenge – as the term denotes in Australian Rules football – or grab him by the lapels or shirtfront and vigorously challenge him – as the term denotes in rugby league.

While the former meaning is the official one assigned to "shirt-front" by Australian dictionaries, the latter usage is probably more familiar to Mr Abbott, who is from Sydney, where rugby league is more popular than Australian Rules football.

A political commentator, Malcolm Farr, said Mr Abbott was speaking figuratively, but noted that "definitions are important".

"We have to know how serious was his figurative threat to understand how serious he will be with the Russian leader," he wrote onnews.com.au.

"So, if the Prime Minister threatening to metaphorically slam the Russian President into the ground? Or simply to muss up his shirt?"

Mr Abbott led the effort in the United Nations to force Russia to comply with investigations into the shooting down of the Malaysia Airlines plane over Ukraine in July. All 298 passengers were killed.

Mr Putin has insisted that Russia was not involved though pro-Russian separatists have been blamed for the attack.

Bill Shorten, the opposition leader, said Mr Putin was an "international bully" and that his visit was tantamount to "rubbing our faces" in the tragedy.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/vladimir-putin/11158335/Tony-Abbott-promises-to-confront-Vladimir-Putin-over-MH17-murdered-Australians-at-G20-summit.html