Adopt Australian policies in refugee crisis: Tony Abbot

Melbourne: Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott today called on Europe nations to take on Australia's border security policies or risk "catastrophic error" and asked Western nations to "stand up for ourselves".

Abbott was delivering the Margaret Thatcher lecture at London's Guildhall, his first major speech after being ousted as Prime Minister.

"No country or continent can open its borders to all comers without fundamentally weakening itself," Abbott said.

"It will require some force, it will require massive logistics and expense; it will gnaw at our consciences," he said.

"Yet it is the only way to prevent a tide of humanity surging through Europe and quite possibly changing it forever," he said while stating that he was concerned?that "misguided altruism" was leading much of Europe into catastrophic error".

He referred the success of the Howard government asylum seeker model and his government's ability to turn back the boats.

He said "too much mercy for some necessarily undermines justice for all".

Abbott also called for more to be done to counter the ideology behind extremist groups, such as Islamic State.

"It's a pity that the recent ,UN Leaders' week summit was solely about countering violent extremism and not abound not about dealing much more effectively with the caliphate that's now the most potent inspiration for it," he said.

Abbott while stressing the need for military action also acknowledged the lack of public appetite for escalating involvement in the Middle East.

"Leaving anywhere, even Syria, to the collective determination of Iran, Russia and Dash (Islamic State) should be too horrible to contemplate," he said.

Abbott praised his nation for being the only country in the world that had successfully defeated the people smuggling model - not once but twice.