Andrew, you feel very strongly about this?

How do you feel now that Abbott has replaced the wet Turnbull?

If only the Liberal party would get rid of all the middle of the road and closet leftists and get back to a conservative agenda, where government tends to fiddle less in our lives not more.

Where we get a government, in state as well, not beholden to green votes or power hungry unions to keep power.

Andrew, I agree that Abbott is not going to cut it.

But is there anyone in the Libs who would?

I’d love to know just exactly what you think the Libs should be doing in order to win the next election and to save our country from the terrible fate that Rudd is committing us to.

I've let my views be known numerous times on this forum about the sort direction that I think the Libs should be taking. But I'll leave that until after you have responded, if you do.

Here's hoping that you are one of the small minority of OLO article writers that do actually partake in the discussion triggered by their article.

I like ‘odo’s’ comment about the Liberal Party and its “closet leftists”. Abbott has driven one of these leftists out of the closet (Malcolm Turnbull) and hopefully out of the party, but there are many more still to be revealed, mainly on the back benchers.

I am anti-Labor, but will not vote Liberal because I am a conservative (my local MP is a wet Liberal) and do not see the Liberal Party as conservative. I don’t think that the Liberal Party sees itself as a conservative party either, preferring to believe that they are a mixture of small ‘l’ liberals (as in the UK) along with some conservatives.

I believe that Tony Abbott is a conservative (sort of) and, if he does to the Liberal Party what Andrew Elder believes he will, I say ‘good’. It’s well after high time that conservative people were not disenfranchised as they have been by a party merely kidding themselves that they were an alternative to Labor. A change of name would be a good start, then the wets could form their own liberal party and still hold out against socialism. Although, with increasing totalitarianism being displayed by both major parties, and the fact that many conservatives don’t hold with Abbott’s religious views (or anyone’s religious views), perhaps a complete overhaul of our political system is in order.

In the meantime, I stick to my belief that there are no politicians worth their salt in Australia (apart from a couple of independents) and I will not vote in the lower house for anyone belonging to any current party. I will content myself with looking for independents standing for the Senate who show a bit of independence and a reasonable degree of conservatism, which is lacking in Australia

You have to be kidding.

If Andrew Elder thinks the Right is politically homeless think about how the Left must feel with the sellout of both sides to the vested interests of the corporate sector. The privatisation of public assets without consultation with the electorate, the continuing corporate welfare and sellout to foreign governments and companies.

It is ironic that the Right bemoan the idea of nationalisation of industry when we it looks like it will be a-okay for the Chinese government to own part of the mineral wealth via the Gorgon venture partnership.

Abbott must be lunatic if he believes the private sector can be trusted with the very 'public service' of health care. Do we want the health system of the US where only the very priveleged can afford health care. The radical right is very scary if this is the future of Australia that the Coalition envisions. The Work Choices of the health system. No thanks.

While both major parties continue to be influenced by corporate vested interest groups over the democratic and participatory rights of the constituency I suspect there will remain many more homeless voters on both sides of the fence.

I knew there was a reason why I didn't buy a copy of his thoughts.
Andrew has just put in the full stop.

Abbott has never impressed me as a politician but to be honest very few on either side do.

Yet another reason why party politics is man's 2nd biggest mistake.

Andrew and examinator have framed my thoughts perfectly.

Throughout the article I just shook my head and thought about how RIGHT I really was that Tony Abbot is the absolute WORST person to have authority over Australia's health ministry;

Which is the reason why I feel that the Health ministry should be independent from the other ministries- because Tony wouldn't stand a snowball's chance of taking that woeful rhetoric into the election platform for it, and if by some psychotic lapse of logic by the voters was voted Prime Minister (again, snowball's chance unless Labor screw everything up at record speed), he won't be able to interfere with it.

To be honest, I don't even enjoy the fact that he's making the Liberals look deservedly silly, he's just too scary a man for me to feel safe while he's still a politician- the sooner he resigns, the better- I don't even care if John Howard or Malcolm Turnbull come out of retirement to replace him- ANYONE is better than he is.

It is a strange sensation, being told what I think, particularly by people who haven't read what I've posted about what I really think.

Here's what I thought when Abbott got elected: http://andrewelder.blogspot.com/2009/12/get-it-off-your-chest-lunatics-have.html

Nothing that has happened since has changed that opinion much. Leigh and odo, this is your big chance: cheer all the way to polling day and wonder why "the silent majority" won't make for an electoral majority.

"Small government" won't give you any middle-class welfare, and nor will it defend our borders: besides, what makes you think that Tony Abbott, Barnaby Joyce or Nick Minchin are big on small government? Anything they've said? Anything they've done? Anything?

All I ask of Abbott's Rabbits is this: having gone their hardest, opposed everything and proposed nothing, they will go away and leave government to grown-ups after the inevitable loss. In NSW, the State Liberals were taken over by clowns and they didn't have the decency to depart after having brought on not one but three Labor landslides. Abbott's Rabbits can't lead the Libs to a huge defeat and then stick around to guarantee nothing other than a long career for Labor hacks, as they have in NSW.