Ah the joys of federal politics.

Foxy - I have to agree with the noble sentiments you posted earlier. If only our system rewarded honesty and capability.

I am traditionally a LNP coalition leaning voter. Personally however, I dislike Tony Abbott. For much the same reason as I disliked Julia Gillard and found George W. Bush very amusing. They seem to allow their personal feelings to overrule any sense of doing the right thing and getting on with the job of governing the country. In a two party system where you vote for your local representative, you are voting for primarily the party you want in power, not the individual for PM and their personal religious and other views. Perhaps if we could persuade Tony Abbott to lose the personal views, spend less time saying "it's labor's fault" and spend more time pursuing the genuine national interest he would be less offensive to some. Probably not however, he seems to have a knack for rubbing people the wrong way.

If only we could avoid the muck raking and mud slinging of politics and actually have a truly progressive government.

Just for fun - Maybe one where the PM doesn't think Wind turbines are ugly and coal power plants are attractive. That would be nice

don't forget BJelly that Abbott also supposedly punched the air 40 years ago which gave the abs two days news. NOw as for Bill's past well! Personal views only affect public performance when its a conservative. You obviously are competing with Foxy and Poirot for the Abbottphobia award for 2015. Hatred does really affect one's vision.

It is not so long since we had a Labor government, so you do not need a long memory to realize that we are now a thousand times better off under Abbott.
I am grateful for the fact that the vandals are not in charge, and deplore Syd’s nitpicking ingratitude.
We have no carbon tax, and a possibility of thr cheap power that our reserves of coal would afford us, were it not for the climate fraud baselessly demonising human emissions.

>>How bad is Abbott really?>>

It depends on your benchmark.

If you're comparing him to his two immediate predecessors, Rudd and Gillard, not too bad.

If you compare him to the three before that, Hawke, Keating and Howard, he's pretty awful.

But if your measure is whether he is up to the challenges facing Australia as we enter the tail-end of the minerals boom there's only one answer:

Hopeless.

However, probably no more hopeless than Shorten.

stevenlmeyer,

>>How bad is Abbott really?>>

It depends on your information source.

If you're using the Murdoch Press as a basis for comparing him to his two immediate predecessors, Rudd and Gillard, not too bad.

If you're using any objective criteria when comparing him to his two immediate predecessors, Rudd and Gillard, he's pretty awful.

To Aidan:

Murdoch, Shmurdoch.

The only worthwhile criterion is my last one.

>>Is he is up to the challenges facing Australia as we enter the tail-end of the minerals boom>>

Rudd and Gillard are history. Whether he was better or worse than them is irrelevant.

But is he up to the job at hand?

Answer: No, nein, nyet, lo, no way Jose, not even close.

Unfortunately neither is Shorten.

All very depressing.