TA remains.
Perhaps because he would not get a job anywhere else.

I'm sorry but he can't blurt out every thought bubble or policy ideas he wouldn't have a bar of, when still PM!

That said the most important voice in politics is the one that disagrees with you, but ought to be reserved for private behind closed doors, if only to convey an impression of unity and loyalty to the elected leader.

Tony has been banned from the cabinet room so he can't do a Rudd and leak like a sieve when it can do the most harm!

Tony should have taken his medicine and the party's decision to dump him and walked! And then maybe without all the snipping from the sidelines, allowed the party not just a comprehensive win but an entrenched position and better odds of united cooperation in the senate?

But instead he has worked tirelessly behind the scenes to open wider the yawning chasm between the moderates and the intractable conservatives?

You know those quite happy to ride to power on the coattails of the moderate middle then set about wrecking the policy paradigm taken to the electors, with the idea that electors and their wishes are the very last consideration!

Thus we saw the shameful Tampa incident and had the granny killing GST rammed down our unwilling gullets, compounded by a decade of pork barrelling the saw the first and second mining boom squandered with welfare for the rich that created the present and growing structural deficit!

I don't see this eternally disrupting influence doing anything but harm, particularly if he can get his power junkie hands on an important portfolio! And would better serve the real liberals by bowing out or joining Cory Bernardi, where the electors will likely welcome him just as the did John howard!

Bring on the next election!
Alan B.

The Liberal Party is a party of the Centre Right Values (freedom of speech, individual freedom and free enterprise, small government). Strong voices are essential to represent the Liberal Party's values. Malcolm Turnbull does not represent and defend them. He advocagttes for maney economically irresponsible policies: climate change, renewable energy, government funded NBN, Government funded coal power stations, government funded Snowy Hydo 2 (ridiculous), massive extra funding for NDIS, Gonski 2, etc. Mostly Labor party polices, responsible, not sound, economically rational policies.

It is essential that people like Tony Abbot and Cory Bernardi do strongly represent Conservative values.

When Abbott defeated Turnbull for leadership, he did not expect him to leave the parliament, & even gave the useless twit a cabinet post. Of course the snake Turnbull offered no thanks for that, just constant undermining.

If Turnbull wanted solidarity he should have given Abbott a cabinet post. As he chose not to, Abbott, as with any Liberal backbenchers, is free to voice his opinion when ever he likes. Hell Libs can even cross the floor without automatic expulsion.

It is most important that he keeps shouting from the roof tops, or Turnbull will make even more mistakes, [if possible], & leave Oz an even worse place.

I presume it was an academic friend Don, as they would probably like Turnbull, as they did Rudd, from whom I believe Turnbull must have been cloned. Surely two such incompetent twits with ideas of grandeur could not have mutated from intelligent Ozzies at similar times, other than by cloning

The “irresponsible” one is not Abbott, but Turnbull. Turnbull is the one supposed to be running the country, not Abbott, who has no power whatsoever. What used to be a 'broad church' is now firmly in the hands of the Left, and the Liberal party under Turnbull has spat in the faces of voters who have always chosen the Liberal party because it was different from the Labor party. If the people want Leftists, they already have the Labor party. Now, Australian conservatives have no choice at all; we have to vote for Hanson or Bernadi, and they aren't going to be able to form a government any time soon. It has taken the cultural Marxists, including those in the Liberal party, 50 years to reduce Australia to the sorry state it is in now. It will be a long, long time before the situation can be righted. Tony Abbott is no threat at all to the self-satisfied types like Turnbull, who have changed the face of the Liberals for the foreseeable future.

The mess that the Liberals have go themselves into by going for Turnbull will ensure a Labor government at the next election, probably relying on Hanson and Bernadi to hang on. The Liberal party itself is finished, and Tony Abbott is an irrelevant side show. And that might not be a bad thing at all.

I wish all the troglytes commenting here could have their way and see Tony reinstalled as "liberal" leader and take his most recent utterances all the next election as party policy!

Even if that requires a dumped Malcolm to resign from the party and contest/represent his seat as a true independent and be in a position to decide what policy gets up and what doesn't, by virtue of having the deciding vote!

And exactly what beckons if the dumb assed conservatives get their way anywhere? Even in preselection?

If Tony genuinely wants a portfolio and if his ideas are so wonderful? Then he and his fellow conservatives remain free to walk, bring down government, then contest the next election with their hearts and beliefs on their sleeves!

No? Why not? Simply because each and everyone of these born to rule control freaks knows full well, that nothing that they genuinely stand for or believe, will still fly or open the doors to elected office!
Parenthetically, loyalty is a two way street!
Alan B.

We will be pushed further to the Left as more young people are put on the electoral roll. Young people are susceptible to the Left because they have had everything given to them all their lives. The Left tells them that there will always be someone else to pay.

The conservative approach taken over the past 50 years has failed. There is nothing left to conserve. Society has been corrupted by the Left. There are no morals, and there is there is no defence of our values.

The Liberal party has sunk to the level of the Labor party. It must be replaced by a true conservative party to put the country back into balance. There is nobody, including Tony Abbott, who can repair the damage.

I'm going to repeat what I've written on other
discussions regarding the behaviour of Mr Abbott.
So please bear with me if you've read it previously.

Mr Abbott once said, "There will be no wrecking,
no undermining, and no sniping." He was going to shut up
and let the government get on with governance. Well, we
are now a very long way in from Mr Abbott's departing
statements. He keeps lobbying verbal grenades and
leering over the shoulder of the Turnbull government.
Under the guise of his opinions or unsolicited advice it
is hard to ignore the fact that the man has not given up
on his dreams of holding court in Kirribilli House.

I think that nobody can see Mr Abbott wanting to be on the
back bench forever.

What should former PMs do?

Quit.

After all it is the back bencher and not the Prime Minister
who should quit if the government is not big enough for both.

This country needs to find some sort of stability.
Mr Abbott is doing a great deal of harm to his own Party.
It needs to stop - now.

Don,

I always enjoy your articles and am usually left with a number of thorny issues to contemplate. This article is another of the same. Thanks again.

One day if it is to your taste, I would like to read your views on thinking; secondly, if there is any chance of improving the thinking of students that could help them in their life (and hopefully model to their children in time); and finally, whether getting thinking into the curriculum is even possible, given that it might (would!) challenge factoids elsewhere.

ttbn

'We will be pushed further to the Left as more young people are put on the electoral roll. Young people are susceptible to the Left because they have had everything given to them all their lives. The Left tells them that there will always be someone else to pay.'

Yes, those selfish young millennials who ... like ... believe that university tuition should be ... like ... free. Their parents benefited from free university tuition to ... like ... provide a strong, stable, secure upbringing for their offspring.

Gaining a university degree is no longer ... like ... what their parents strived for to obtain a better job. It's now ... like ... the bottom-rung requirement for entry to the workforce. So, they have to ... like ... saddle themselves with years and years of debt to just enter the workforce.

Putting young people on the electoral role is dangerous. They know that something is wrong. Their government has plenty of money to spend on bombing Syria and tax cuts for the rich and exorbitant parliamentary pensions and financing the privatisation of everything, and not enough to spend on social infrastructure, welfare, health care and education.

Like ... who do they think they are? The future generation or something?

Killarney,

Well done. You summarise the uselessness of the generation in question very well. You think that you are being smart and sarcastic, but you are actually telling the truth. A lot of useless young bludgers the lot of them.

ttbn

Yeah. Useless young bludgers faced with a 4-6 year HECS debt, followed by unpaid internships, followed by zero-hours contracts, followed by a housing market too expensive to enter.

Yeah. These useless young bludgers have got it made. I'd love to be in their shoes. What a pity I was born 30 years too early.

Donate their bodies, preferably while still alive and before claiming taxpayer monies, to Gunther von Hagens!

Killarney

Agreed. The young bludgers will just have to adjust to wage cuts, it's only fair, the rich have to cope with tax cuts. Many of the conservative politicians who are intensifying the class war were the benefiaries of free tertiary education, relatively low real estate prices and rising real wages.

Dear Killarney,

«What a pity I was born 30 years too early.»

We should call ourselves lucky for being born earlier: the second half of the 20th century has been the best time to live in for some millennia, but since about the 1990's, the quality of life steadily declines again. I am glad that I will not have to remain here for too long now.

Today's kids are lost, they have no purpose in life, they have to contend with all this toxic technology, with broken families and as you mentioned, are not allowed to do any useful work before they complete university degrees, wasting years of their life there - including those whose temperament is not suitable for studies. I certainly do not envy them!

If we truly care for them, rather than for our personal lineage, we should avoid helping them into this world at this time. Disembodied souls have anyway no sense of the passage of time.

Interestingly, this new generation itself is less interested in physical sex and relationships than ever before. They must be intuitively feeling the futility of procreation.

leoj:

Thanks for your suggestion. I have written a few pieces on 'thinking' and how to do it better, on my website (www.donaitkin.com). Maybe in a few weeks...

Don,

Thank you. Having a look.

How about a job for European commission Turning Back the Boats ?