It would be interesting to see the reaction from some sectors if the Snowy Scheme were introduced today. There would be much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the "green" groups.

In 1949 we didn't have EISs, EPAs, the watemelon party, etc. If we did it would have taken 25 years to complete the required reports before construction even started.

"The Abbott government could be the very first from the conservative side to shape Australia for a generation or two." He may well do but will have a very rocky, up hill path. The left will fight to have that shape as their own image.

Tony is many things but he is not a visionary. As well, he is not a statesman or a diplomat or an intellectual.

Tony feels at home in a surf club or at a cycling carnival. He sits in the Prime Minister's chair more by luck than anything else while the man who should be P.M. (Turnbull) sits in the wings.

How many blunders will Tony have to make before he is dethroned by his own party?

Well, to give the man his due, he did consider developing the north.
Some say that is visionary.
What's missing in all of these visions of a northern Nirvana, are the requisite funding mechanisms. The man under the Hat would say, borrow, borrow, borrow!
I say, reform the tax system to end both avoidance, and compliance costs.
It can be done, but it will take a leader with both courage and vision. And without actually increasing the tax burden on the honest tax payer, improve the bottom line by as much as 100 billion per.
Given that's around how much avoidance costs the wider less privileged community!
Tony seems to lack both vision and commitment to genuine egalitarianism/true liberalism, when it counts?
As indeed does the, playing in the same team, tea party.
But then they have an excuse, they possibly don't share as much as a single still functioning brain between them, whereas, the libs have Malcolm!
They just need to start listening to him, rather than applying the political gag?
Tony may not be a statesman, but then he inherited the spying outcomes from the former administration.
Somebody needs to convince Tony that this spying has stopped, so that he can apologize on behalf of a previous administration and reassure Asia, that spying on proven or real friends, is just not part of Australia's policies.
Rhrosty.

Tony is many things but he is not a visionary. As well, he is not a statesman or a diplomat or an intellectual.
David G,
I suppose Bill Shorten is a statesman & a visionary ? Just like moron Rudd was ? I put it to you that you wouldn't recognise sense & integrity if it fell on you. One positive though, you can only improve in mentality & other basic instincts.

Sparkyq,
Just try to imagine for one moment David G, Marylin Shepherd, Poirot et all on the wheel barrows & shovels in a project such as the Snowy Scheme with Kevin Rudd as overseer & Bill Shorten as foreman & Tanya Pliberseck in the canteen. Maxine McKew could write the smoko list. Big Goaf sitting on rock watching it all. Perhaps Monty Python could do a take on them.

How about abolishing abortion on demand? This is systemic, organised serial mass murder, and is a shocking crime against humanity and the God who made us all, yet subsidising it with taxpayers' dollars makes everyone complicit in this crime.

How about pushing for adoption for 'unwanted' babies or financial assistance in halfway houses?
Anything but this ghastly 'therapeutic' procedure.