TA remains.
Perhaps because he would not get a job anywhere else.

I'm sorry but he can't blurt out every thought bubble or policy ideas he wouldn't have a bar of, when still PM!

That said the most important voice in politics is the one that disagrees with you, but ought to be reserved for private behind closed doors, if only to convey an impression of unity and loyalty to the elected leader.

Tony has been banned from the cabinet room so he can't do a Rudd and leak like a sieve when it can do the most harm!

Tony should have taken his medicine and the party's decision to dump him and walked! And then maybe without all the snipping from the sidelines, allowed the party not just a comprehensive win but an entrenched position and better odds of united cooperation in the senate?

But instead he has worked tirelessly behind the scenes to open wider the yawning chasm between the moderates and the intractable conservatives?

You know those quite happy to ride to power on the coattails of the moderate middle then set about wrecking the policy paradigm taken to the electors, with the idea that electors and their wishes are the very last consideration!

Thus we saw the shameful Tampa incident and had the granny killing GST rammed down our unwilling gullets, compounded by a decade of pork barrelling the saw the first and second mining boom squandered with welfare for the rich that created the present and growing structural deficit!

I don't see this eternally disrupting influence doing anything but harm, particularly if he can get his power junkie hands on an important portfolio! And would better serve the real liberals by bowing out or joining Cory Bernardi, where the electors will likely welcome him just as the did John howard!

Bring on the next election!
Alan B.

The Liberal Party is a party of the Centre Right Values (freedom of speech, individual freedom and free enterprise, small government). Strong voices are essential to represent the Liberal Party's values. Malcolm Turnbull does not represent and defend them. He advocagttes for maney economically irresponsible policies: climate change, renewable energy, government funded NBN, Government funded coal power stations, government funded Snowy Hydo 2 (ridiculous), massive extra funding for NDIS, Gonski 2, etc. Mostly Labor party polices, responsible, not sound, economically rational policies.

It is essential that people like Tony Abbot and Cory Bernardi do strongly represent Conservative values.

When Abbott defeated Turnbull for leadership, he did not expect him to leave the parliament, & even gave the useless twit a cabinet post. Of course the snake Turnbull offered no thanks for that, just constant undermining.

If Turnbull wanted solidarity he should have given Abbott a cabinet post. As he chose not to, Abbott, as with any Liberal backbenchers, is free to voice his opinion when ever he likes. Hell Libs can even cross the floor without automatic expulsion.

It is most important that he keeps shouting from the roof tops, or Turnbull will make even more mistakes, [if possible], & leave Oz an even worse place.

I presume it was an academic friend Don, as they would probably like Turnbull, as they did Rudd, from whom I believe Turnbull must have been cloned. Surely two such incompetent twits with ideas of grandeur could not have mutated from intelligent Ozzies at similar times, other than by cloning

The “irresponsible” one is not Abbott, but Turnbull. Turnbull is the one supposed to be running the country, not Abbott, who has no power whatsoever. What used to be a 'broad church' is now firmly in the hands of the Left, and the Liberal party under Turnbull has spat in the faces of voters who have always chosen the Liberal party because it was different from the Labor party. If the people want Leftists, they already have the Labor party. Now, Australian conservatives have no choice at all; we have to vote for Hanson or Bernadi, and they aren't going to be able to form a government any time soon. It has taken the cultural Marxists, including those in the Liberal party, 50 years to reduce Australia to the sorry state it is in now. It will be a long, long time before the situation can be righted. Tony Abbott is no threat at all to the self-satisfied types like Turnbull, who have changed the face of the Liberals for the foreseeable future.

The mess that the Liberals have go themselves into by going for Turnbull will ensure a Labor government at the next election, probably relying on Hanson and Bernadi to hang on. The Liberal party itself is finished, and Tony Abbott is an irrelevant side show. And that might not be a bad thing at all.

I wish all the troglytes commenting here could have their way and see Tony reinstalled as "liberal" leader and take his most recent utterances all the next election as party policy!

Even if that requires a dumped Malcolm to resign from the party and contest/represent his seat as a true independent and be in a position to decide what policy gets up and what doesn't, by virtue of having the deciding vote!

And exactly what beckons if the dumb assed conservatives get their way anywhere? Even in preselection?

If Tony genuinely wants a portfolio and if his ideas are so wonderful? Then he and his fellow conservatives remain free to walk, bring down government, then contest the next election with their hearts and beliefs on their sleeves!

No? Why not? Simply because each and everyone of these born to rule control freaks knows full well, that nothing that they genuinely stand for or believe, will still fly or open the doors to elected office!
Parenthetically, loyalty is a two way street!
Alan B.