The revelation was made in the ABC television series Nemesis, about the former Coalition government.
Malcolm Turnbull, a cabinet minister under Abbott in 2014, told the program he thought it was a “genuinely crazy idea”.
“To send armed personnel … no one would’ve welcomed it, and particularly our Western allies would not have welcomed it,” Turnbull, the then communications minister, said.
“It showed, if you like, the elements of Tony that started to make me feel that we had a very dangerous prime minister.”
The passenger jet was downed in July 2014 by Russian-backed separatist fighters, with the loss of 298 lives, 38 of whom called Australia home.
Former Australian Defence Force chief Angus Houston, appointed special envoy to Ukraine by Abbott after the downing of MH17, told the programme the-then prime minister was doing what was necessary to secure the crash site and repatriate the remains of Australian victims.
The pair discussed the options of a police-led operation or a military response.
“We had a very sensible discussion about what all the factors at play and at the end of it all, he said. Uh, okay. Angus, I accept your advice. It’ll be a police-led operation,” Houston told the ABC.
Other former Abbott government members said on the programme the then-prime minister activated a war-cabinet-style response to the MH17 downing.
Months before the tragedy, Russia had invaded and annexed the Crimean peninsula in Ukraine.
Kremlin-backed separatists also seized territory in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.
International investigations established the missile that downed MH17 was launched from this territory.
