When Gillard staved off a challenge winning 72 to 31 Abbott shrilled that she was "illegitimate" and should stand aside as she had lost the support of her party.

But when Abbott wins 61 to 39 it is a firm confirmation of his leadership and full steam ahead for good governance.

The man could not lie straight in bed...yet another in the litany of lies, exaggerations and preposterous statements. one of the commenters here had the hide to bring up the old chestnut of supposed Gillard carbon tax lie...jeez obviously can't read or understand Abbott's own actions and statements.

Dear Peter,

I fully agree - with the man's hypocrisy.
It appears that he is determined to totally
destroy the Liberal Party. The Party could
recover under a different leadership, but certainly
not under this man's leadership.

Gosh Hasbeen, are you really that distraught at the realisation of what Mr Abbott's government has wrought, and how silly the mainstream media is now looking in hindsight?

And as to what Mr Abbott's government might have done that would have served our country much better, Rhosty's list seems like a good start.

Runner, are you OK?

Sorry — "Rhrosty".

Interesting comments. Thanks.

@Curmudgeon, no, the opposite is true.

@Rhrosty, agree mostly.
Just on this, however: “nowhere in your critique have you laid out what could have been done different?”
Correct. This piece is about reportage, not the performance and personalities which are the subject of the reportage.
Happy to discuss that, however.
In a nutshell, this Government should not have spent so wastefully, and should have expanded rather than cut the required streams of tax revenue.
Agree with the rest of your post, Rhrosty. Sound, as always.

@Hasbeen, good morning to you too.
No, this piece is not about Mr Shorten. It is about how the Fairfax, Murdoch and ABC newsrooms got things so badly wrong about Mr Abbott.
Fortunately, they now admit this. So things may well improve.

Agree with most of the other observations here so far. Thank you.
Happy to discuss, as always.
Cheers, AA

Dear Alan,

The current government keeps stressing their
so called "achievements" thus far. I find
their claims don't make any sense.

Their claim of "we got rid of the carbon tax,"
How is that a success. All that's done is
given the big polluters a free ride to continue
with their pollution of the environment and
its stopped our investments into renewable energy
sources - which would be good for the economy and
jobs.

Then their claim of we stopped the "Mining Tax."
Big whoop. So what. All that's done is - stopped
tax income to the treasury - and the mining industry
already gets more than its fair share of concessions
and subsidies - at a time when we need the funds -
why not make those who can afford to pay - pay.
Instead of increasing the GST and making the poor pay.

Then the old favourite of stopping the boats.
How have they stopped the boats. They merely diverted
them to offshore-islands in the Pacific and pay the
governments of those islands millions of dollars to take
care of the problem. Very wise economics (not).

Am I the only one seeing what is obvious?

Well, that's enough for now. I'm sure there will be more
concerns coming up in the future.