Such determination to take down the opposition leader. Now, as it was pre election.

It suggests to me that Labour-philes are under no delusions about how close he came to PM; nor that with the slightest Labour cock-up, he still might be.

The disturbing thing about the ascension of Tony Abbott as Liberal Leader in Australia
is that lying has taken a new sinister form.

Talk all you want about a new Gillard led minority Govt having to adjust to a new paradigm
and describing this as lying, the type of lies introduced by Tony Abbott are designed and deliberate deception.

Not only are the lies designed to deliberately deceive, but they are re-jigged and re-worded after the fact by other cohorts such as Robb and Hockey on this occasion. Unfortunately for TA on this occasion he told the truth by accident in his first initial non-scripted response to the PM's invitation.

I'm left to wonder if Abbott learn't anything from the British Conservative Conference because
he would have been informed that the profligate Labour Opposition had been very helpful and co-operative
in a minority Govt situation thankfully, with the British economy in crisis exactly the way Australia isn't.

More sinister is the Liberal/National parties audited election manifesto, which appears in the cold hard light of day to have been a complete fraud.
Now the accused, reputable accountancy firm has denied that the election costings of the LNP were audited or costed as such.

In a classic web of lies designed specifically to deceive we now hear that

(a) Hockey made an understandable mistake referring to it as an audit. (Robb spin 1)
(b) Whilst it wasn't technically an audit it was a same or similar thing (Robb spin 2)
(c) Accountancy firms like ...... don't actually provide the type or service or product that
the Treasury Dept does anyway. (Robb spin 3).

I'm left to wonder what the election result would have been had we known
these facts at the time?. cont,

The whole point of course is that Treasury was available for costings anyway prior to the
election but Abbott's strategy was to invent savings, invent the the notion that treasury wasn't independent,
invent a perception that we have a crisis of debt, invent the threat of invasion from boat people,
and finally post election invent the the notion of a gentler polity in a deliberate attempt
to deceive all negotiating parties during crucial talks to form Gov't.

Who could trust this person? or his team.Tony Windsor in particularly was not fooled by Abbott
and for those who think that Gillard is bad, you ain't seen nothing yet if Abbott was PM.

The author of the article refers to Howard, another ideological tragic and digressive
and as a result, an International pariah.
And after 13 or so years of backward small town thinking, I shudder when I think about the amount of taxpayers money John Howard spent
on indoctrinating our children. Changing their view of history etc in curricular at schools, endless Govt advertising and pork barrelling etc.

A son of Howard version Abbott led Gov't is clearly a fearful prospect. I share the authors concerns.

I wonder just what the problem is for David Donovan?

Is it really because Abbott used an absolutely stupid reason for not visiting Afghanistan with Gillard?

Is it because Abbott visited an".. ideologically aligned political party?" Or,is it perhaps because he was the "executive director of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy" in his younger days? Maybe it is simply because he is a conservative!

Is any of the above a hanging offence? I think not.

David Donovan's piece reads for what it is- a brief put together with "judiciously" selected references to Abbott's conservatism and a lot of far-fetched speculation of this might happen, or it could be this, no it wont, it will be this because Abbott said something stupid. He didn't start a 3rd world war.

Besides, Gillard and Labor have not come out of this smelling as sweet as new-mown hay. But, that small factor is quite comprehensivley ignored. Bit like what goes on in a court of law, really.

Quite entertaining I suppose for those who suspend critical thinking and buy the lofty sounding prose of righteous indigination about someone on the wrong side of the political blanket as far as David is concerned.

By-the-way - Labor is only in power in Australia because of an alliance with the Greens and because 2 conservative independents saw fit to defy their electorate's voice. No more of a recommendation than you hint at re the new UK government.

Maybe Donovan's cat has probably a more reasoned slant on why Australia's prime minister Julia Gillard had to play politics with the scheduling of the events, considering that the opposition leader Tony Abbott advised the prime minister well before time of his "troop trip" which he planed and advised the prime minister accordingly. A woman in a war zone has no real picture impact except capitulation, that's probabley why green labor had to produce an attack at any cost.

Lobor's mercy mission with bite.

No ibbitt, Labor is in power because the opposition took Tony Abbott as their prime ministerial candidate to the electorate.

Had the Libs had Malcolm Turnbull as leader for example, the defeat of a Gov't in disarray would have most likely been the result.

The difficulty for the Libs is that there is not one person currently sitting on their front bench that I can imagine as a PM anyway.
I've scratched Malcolm since he joined Abbott's team.

The Abbott strategy has always been to mudsling at the Gov't and I think that some of his colleagues are visibly un-comfortable
having to toe this line (to their credit), but none the less, doing this would be affecting the public's view of them as well.

As I mentioned earlier, hanging with Tony has changed my perception of Malcolm Turnbull
already. Imagine the squirming he must be suffering by acting as the destroyer of the NBN,
a progressive idea that he would most likely support, one would have thought.

The continuation of this knock and block strategy can only continue until the balance of power changes in the Senate,
and then it will be a whole new ball game for whomever retains the Govt benches.

The trick for the new model Alliance Govt will be to hold on too the Gov't benches at least till then.
Meanwhile the Brutus of Australian politic's Tony Abbott will continue true to form,
hopefully this will ultimately prove a political blunder.