Former university mates of Opposition leader Tony Abbott are not surprised of his aggressive behaviour in Parliament today, particularly against women and gays. A fellow female student at Sydney University, who won over Mr Abbott as president of the Students Representative Council, was quoted in a political essay of her unpleasant experience then with the losing candidate.

In an essay titled Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott which was published in Quarterly Essay 47, David Marr recounted the experience of the winning candidate, Barbara Ramjan.

Mr Marr wrote that Ms Ramjan thought that Mr Abbott would congratulate her for winning the student council top post similar to what happened when Mr Abbott, the losing candidate in the 1975 election, congratulated David Patch, now a Sydney lawyer, for his own win in the same student body election two years earlier.

"That's not what he wanted. He came to within an inch of my nose and punched the wall on either side of my head," Mr Marr quoted Ms Ramjan.

Gerard Henderson, a defender of Mr Abbott and current head of the Sydney Institute, claimed there was no witness to the alleged incident between the now Opposition leader and Ms Ramjan, and insisted the punch to the University wall 35 years ago was made only in the "aggrieved person's memory."

Mr Patch, who served as Ms Ramjan's campaign manager in the 1977 student election, belied Mr Henderson's claim. Mr Patch said he was nearby when the incident happened. He said Ms Ramjan, a small woman, was very shaken, scared and angry by what happened and immediately recounted Mr Abbott's offensive behaviour to him.

The post-election incident was just the start of Mr Abbott's alleged bullying Ms Ramjan who chaired the SRC meetings and preferred to be addressed as chairperson. However, Mr Abbott insisted on calling her chairthing during the meetings.

"The gender-based disrespect for her office and her person is remarkably similar to the disrespectful way that Abbott treats the Prime Minister, and her office, today," Mr Patch said.

For exhibiting the same antagonistic attitude toward Prime Minister Julia Gillard, political observers asked if Mr Abbott has an axe to grind against female authority figures. The opposition leader has denied the observation.

Mr Patch, who did not experience the same negative behaviour when he won against Mr Abbott as did Ms Ramjan, wrote, "He was always (verbally) attacking gays and feminists and lefties. You certainly knew what he was against - the trouble was that you couldn't figure out what he favoured."

He added that while Mr Abbott was active with a fundamentalist political movement with a religious base, what stood out about him was his offensive behaviour which he apparently continues today in Parliament.

Mr Abbott told Mr Marr he could not recall the wall punching incident and eventually denied such thing happened. Earlier this week, the Opposition leader who has his eyes on the prime minister's post in 2013, denied a claim by another woman who ran against him for the Democrats in 2007, that he put his face an inch from the woman's and grunted while she was handing out how-to-vote cards.

While Mr Abbott eventually won in the SU student election, his chances at taking over Ms Gillard's post is starting to dim, according to recent survey results, because of his apparent abrasive behaviour that even voters - females, gays and even males - have noted.

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