In the end it was down to bad policies badly enacted, incompetence, blatant lies and being totally out of his depth.

Constant fear-and hate mongering doesn't sit well in most societies long term and that's all he had to work with.

In the end he still refused to accept responsibility for his own demise, blaming others -including the media that got him into power in the first place.

It was down to Social Media to broadcast the truth about what was really happening and despite employing a horde of PR people, they couldn't deal with it.

He didn't even make it to "One Term Tony" which is quite an achievement in itself.

The reason Abbot and his ministers failed was due to the fact that certain portions of the liberal party had simply lost touch with reality. It is simply ridiculous to make a large range of promises before the the election and then do the opposite after the election. People don't expect that governments will be able to achieve all their goals but wholesale dumping of pre election promises is not on. The first budget was perceived as highly unfair and only benefiting the very wealthy, it just did not occur to them that this might be a problem.

Abbot's thinking is seriously out of touch with majority of the Australian population for example he was fixated on building roads which was the the thinking back in the 1930s, but what our cities need now to relieve congestion is a comprehensive transport plan. Again on climate change some 70% of the Australian population believe we should tackle climate change issues, but the out of touch group in the liberals still refuse to believe it is a problem. Actions such as trying to argue that windmills are ugly while praising 19th century coal technology just shows how it of it they were. Worst they successfully stuffed up the renewable power industry.

On the financial front they still don't seem to get it that the reason for the governments deteriorating budgets position is a huge reduction in tax from the mining companies. Our new treasurer is going round saying the answer is to cut spending and taxes, sorry but that ain't going to work it has not worked elsewhere. It is inevitable that we will have to find ways to raise more revenue and there are plenty of easy pickings at this stage, such as getting stuck into the international companies who are not paying their fair share and the super benefits that favour the very wealthy.

In short the people hope that Liberals under Turnbull might consider what works rather than spin but I doubt if sections of the far right ideologues will let him.

The far right are now the minority in power and another election will see the far right wiped out as it should be.

The far right supporters are only a minor concern, those that want to see Australia turned into a third world, with mega rich upper class. Third world economies are not politically motivated to spread wealth as it is not in the super riches benefit

Middle of the road voters can’t fathom what the far right seen in Abbott, both as PM and after PM. The assumption is Abbott would benefit business at the workers expense.

Howard tried it with his work choices, [ the choices were take it or leave it ] under the guise of it will benefit all of Australia. Abbott lied himself into the PM’s chair, along with a co-operative treasurer, and immediately bought about a devastating budget that would have bought the working class to their knees.

What small business did not realize there would be less spare money to patronize their businesses with. No one was ever going to win, instead it would have transformed Australia into a stay at home community.

Turnbull only has one wild card in his line up, Morrison, It will remain to be seen what side he is going down. I suspect under Turnbull’s eye he will be supervised.

Australia transformed overnight when Abbott got knifed, a massive glow was seen in the darkness, and getting brighter every day. Investment money’s that were on hold can now be released with confidence and kick-start our miserable .2 % growth figures.

Another quarter and we were destined to slip into depression.
Australia hit rock bottom, which triggered the over-through of the incumbent PM Abbott. After 22 years of consecutive growth we were on the verge of a downgrading of credit ratings, and banana republicanism

"Australia transformed overnight when Abbott got knifed, a massive glow was seen in the darkness, and getting brighter every day"

The 'magic bullet' of a new leader, huh?

Why have all of those elected representatives filling the seats in the House of Representatives and the Senate? Cabinet Government? Not needed at all. Your local pollie, just a vacant space as well?

It is simply amazing how many geese believe what the spinmasters and lazy editors feed them.

While I may not have agreed with Joh Bjelke Peterson at the time, he certainly got that 'feeding the chooks' right, referring to his media briefings. Back then, many of the public would have agreed with Joh's assessment of the media.

In the present day, when few journalists would have any idea what 'investigative journalism' entails and regurgitating spin is usual, they nonetheless seem to be meeting the needs of their dumbed down audiences.

I am warming to the arguments for voluntary voting, whereas before I would have rejected it out of hand.

Dear Don,

A respectable piece until you got into your pet delusion.

You wrote;

“Tony Abbott beat Malcolm Turnbull by one vote back in November 2009, over Turnbull’s attitude to ‘climate change’. The vote took place just before the fiasco of the Copenhagen climate conference. Malcolm Turnbull has had five years to think about all that. In that time it is likely that some of his belief in the menace of anthropogenic global warming will have waned, if only because there hasn’t been any discernible warming in that time, despite the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. One of the satellite measures shows no warming now for 18 years and eight months. He will also have noted that governmental enthusiasm around the world for ‘combating climate change’ has greatly subsided.”

The world continues to warm old chap and no amount of quibbling will help you.

Here is the latest graph from NASA.

“http://climate.nasa.gov/interactives/warming_world

As to governmental enthusiasm waning;

“China to introduce nationwide emissions trading scheme”
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/china-to-introduce-nationwide-emissions-trading-scheme-20150925-gjuv7a.html

It is about time you recognise this is your blind spot (we all have them) and try and not let it pollute your other offerings.

No spin doctors here it is pure observation. The change in PM is worth billions just because of his middle of the tarmac approach.
That was never going to happen with Abbott the conservative wreaking ball.

Turnbull will need every one of his team, as against Toni’s Presidential approach. That is how not to be a PM.

Turnbull will be on Probation in the court of public opinion, until he has consolidated his worthiness.

All we know at the moment is he has made a good start, he is a likeable man with brainpower. He should have never been exited in favor of Abbott. It has cost this country plenty.

The world has turned in favor of Turnbull, Indonesia needs to be smoothed over before we can have normalized relations with neighbors. And not interfere with another country’s laws.

We are now lagging considerably in the challenges of global clean up, to cut our Co2 Pollution.