Most of the "Liberal Democratic" Party policies http://www.ldp.org.au/index.php/policies are really feel good - more rights, pro-monied interests, less social responsibility.

The Commonwealth Bank and big power companies would love it.

Putting the "Liberal Democratic" Party policies together comes up with - pro-pot smoking bikies with guns - with reduced police involvement to handle them.

<I am the first politician elected to an Australian parliament on a purely libertarian platform,

<with a mission to lower taxes, remove regulation, and put an end to the nanny state.

Where would we be without taxes?

The hume highway would be a dirt track or maybe a toll way ( that is tax by the way).

The vast majority of our children would not be able to read or right (write). Unless their parents were wealthy.

We would not have the standard of health that we have today, and join many of the third world countries in infant mortality.

Remove 'regulations' so that protections are removed, just the other day a woman died after being electrocuted by product that did not meet Australian regulatory safety standards.

We only need to look at what has happened to power prices especially in Victoria, once prices have been deregulated.

We get price gouged by fuel companies, the big 4 banks and the super market chains.

The idea of a 'free market' is delusional dream or the promotor stands to make a huge amount of money out of selling the idea.

@ Emperor Julian:

No need to go straight to citizen referendums, although organisations such as Get Up are making it easier to gather the numbers to request one.

How about a very small change to Senate voting rules, as follows?

Voting above the line. Number each square from 1 to X, where X is, say, 6 minimum. Party-determined vote swaps will be ineffective because the system is simple enough for voters to determine their own preferences if they wish regardless of any party line.

Voting below the line will be by numbering, say, 12 or more squares. Again, there is no room for effective vote swaps, because voters will very simply make their own decisions, despite party How-To-Vote recommendations.

Formal BTL votes will be accepted. ATL will be counted if and only if no formal BTL vote has been cast.

The result will be fairer, simpler and much easier to count than at present.

There will be no need to proceed with current plans of the large parties to discard votes from parties/blocks with less than 3% share, because there will be vastly fewer single issue outfits standing. The LibDems and other loonies will cease to exist.

It's a bit rich, complaining that the liberal democrats is a misnomer, when the most conservative party in our history, consistently refers to itself as liberal!
The same party that hissed mining boom mark one, up against the wall as tax breaks for those who just didn't need them, and or vote buying pork barreling, and 70 billions and rising, worth of entitlements for the better off, that they now want to pay for, by taking the bread out of the mouths of babes!?
And if, repeat if the other party, was similarly courting very big business, at the expense of their former core constituents, then when has two wrongs ever made a right!
As for the states collecting tax, that's a recipe, for once again, states competing with each other, and even madder now than then, in a global market, that laughs at us, all the way to the bank.
What do you think patent pragmatists were actually referring to, when the quote was, we would become the poor white trash of Australia?
Our outstanding manufacturing growth, or our world beating aerospace industries?
We who once owned a bank, a telco, an airline, with the most enviable and trusted reputation, are now, all but extending a virtual begging bowl to Asia!?
Neither party is covered in glory, but rather shame, given the extent of privatization, and during mining booms, with income earnings, that now must be replaced or simply forgone.
I mean, just take all that we once owned, then add up all the current revenue, and then match that against aged pensions, i.e. And then ask yourself, why is any taxpayer being asked to put their hand in their pocket to pay for this!
Excellent management practices by various governments perhaps!?
Rhrosty.

If we the people actually owned a citizens initiated referendum, we could, i.e., reverse some of the really nutty conventions we signed, that lock up huge swaths of our economic zones, and the treasures that may lay there; oblige the states to vote themselves out of existence, and allow we the people, to pocket or re-prioritize, the seventy billions PA, this would save or release.
We could, return much more regional autonomy, and direct funding model, of all social service.
A measure that would liberate a further, 30%, of the current funding total, for more coal face funding; as opposed to simply padding the bank accounts of thousands of fee charging, middle men, money handling, make work in triplicate, state bureaucrats/politicians?
There is nothing the states actually do, that couldn't be done far better by councils and the federal govt, and a return to, unpaid voluntary regional boards. Asian pragmatists did just that, as they predicted, we would become the poor white trash of Asia!
We need to re-inculcate, the volunteer traditions, that served us so well, during the Great Depression, and the ultra pragmatic decisions that flowed from that, from people, really in touch, with all of a particular regions, most pressing problems!
Rhrosty.

I agree fully with everything that Rhrosty has written in his (second) post above, and I routinely place the Liberals last, even after all the other freaks[1]. That doesn't alter the fact that the term "Liberal Democrats" is a lie intended to fool people into associating it with the British Liberal Democrats (not they they're any oil painting either)

[1] I did once point out to my local Member, Michael Keenan, that if the Libs replaced Abbott with Turnbull I'd promote them to second last.