Abbott restored knights and dames to Australia's honours system in early 2014, nearly 30 years after they were abolished in 1986.
But a subsequent public and party backlash triggered a leadership crisis that threatened to end Abbott's premiership and forced the prime minister to give up the power to create knights and dames.
It is made clear that those who are made knights or dames are socially superior to those given CBEs, OBEs or MBEs.
Six per cent of recipients come from ethnic minority communities – including Judge Mota Singh QC, one of 20 new knights and six new dames, among them Claire Bertschinger, the nurse made famous during the 1984 Ethiopian famine.
That would link the vote to an emotionally-resonant victory that (according to popular belief) saw Robert the Bruce and a band of hairy Highland heroes defeat a much larger army of sneering, heavily-armoured Norman knights sent north by a simpering English tyrant, Edward II.
Wealth of the nation A hollow victory Rebalancing, not realigning Dachagate White nights and knights The end of enlargement?
Together, the EU's directive amendments and FATCA would amount to the biggest overhaul of the legal treatment of trusts and similar legal arrangements since trust law was first developed in the 12th century, for Crusader knights wanting to safeguard their assets while they were away in the Holy Land.
But the subsequent siege and capture of Calais gave England a foothold in northern France that would not be relinquished until 1558.On his return to England, Edward commemorated these triumphs by founding the Company of the Garter, a society of knights headed by himself and his eldest son, the Black Prince.
The knights of the Garter, now headed by the queen, still troop into the chapel at Windsor each year.
But only he, as prime minister, will pick candidates to become knights and dames.
As Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs, argues: "There is no such thing as a point of no return in this battle, because both sides are represented not by noble knights, but cynical traders".
