Placing the lipstick on the pig by junking Abbott gave the LNP a winning margin for the first time since the Abbott-Santamaria mafia lied it into office. Since then enough electors have recognised the pig behind the lipstick for the electoral advantage of the incomplete cleanout to be all but lost. Just read the opinion polling history. Mr Turnbull is a gentleman trying to prop up a body riddled with Abbott-Santamaria metastases. Couldn't last.

And Yabby, about half the conservatives I know will cheer if Turnbull loses. The last thing we want is this disgusting bit of garbage as PM, or in the Liberal party.

Many will only vote Liberal again, after he's gone, & the quickest way to achieve that is for a Labor win.

EmperorJulian, I don't know how anyone can be so naïve as to hold your opinion of Turnbull. You must believe gentlemen always carry a blood dripping knife.

I suppose you would consider Gillard a gentle lady then too.

No, Gillard's not a gentle lady. Rather a very gutsy lady who was the only pollie who could gather together a functional and effective government from the mixed bag the voters elected to parliament in 2010. Her only real failing was to let the ALP apparatchiks persuade her to hold her punches in the face of Abbott and Murdoch's and Alan Jones' avalanche of libellous lies.

*And Yabby, about half the conservatives I know will cheer if Turnbull loses.*

Hasbeen, you just made my point for me. So full of hate you have forgotten how to think. Conservatives are going to have to swallow the fact that many might be liberal, but not conservative. Many an old fart is simply too old and stubborn to adjust to a changing world. The polls prove me right. People don't want Abbott, other than a few conservatives. Turnbull can at least still think like younger people think, unlike a whole bunch of you.

The likes of the Abbott-Santamaria throwbacks seem to have managed to hijack the word "conservative". To me, conservative means resistant to loss of the enormous human progress made as a result of the late 18th century Enlightenment. Protecting the postwar social compact, and the huge advances in fairness brought in by the Whitlam government, is conservative. Radical throwbacks are not merely anti-change they are unravellers of what has been achieved in the past. Protecting social security including Medicare is conservative. Seeking loss of these gains is not conservative but is radical. Going after new change towards greater fairness and justice is, on the other hand, progressive.