Anyway, who else is there?
JF Aus,
In other countries they wonder who to choose, here they wonder if there is anyone to choose. Drastic difference wouldn't you say ?

Tony Abbott IS a liar.

http://sallymcmanus.net/abbotts-wreckage/

individual,
You are not wrong there.
Thinking about it the media here comes to mind, with their closed shop and non democratic gagging of news not on the two preferred party agenda's.
We don't get to hear from potential leaders to be able to assess who is capable of what.
But we are getting to hear who we do not want.
Like a few others on this site, I am sick and tired of liars.

Politicians are always targets when they appear to change their minds due to unforeseen circumstances and we then have all this venom and name calling. If circumstances change and further evidence presents itself to make one reconsider a previously held sincere belief, they get pilloried for it, even though they might present cogent and well thought out reasons.

I really hate it as a follower of OLO when, what should be sensible debate, deteriorates in such a way, and I find it immature.

I am quite sure that neither Tony Abbott nor Julia Gillard had any intention of making statements that they knew would be thrown back at them when in office. They just made what they thought were poor decisions at the time they made them.

Every individual in life makes a statement that they don't follow through with which they believed at the time. Just don't call them Liars.

Snake,
I understand your sentiment there about calling poly's liars, they call each other liars. At one time a poly on his soap box could expect a lot worse than name calling being directed his way. If your going to put your hand up for public office, you need a rather thick skin to take the abuse that will come your way from time to time.
As a member of what some would call a fringe party, The Greens, we never allow a candidate to campaign on their own, for the simple reason there are abusive people out there. Not all of our candidates are hard nosed people, some are quite soft in nature and do get offended when called names, and suffer badly from personal insults.

Yes Paul, I understand where you are coming from. It doesn't stop me deploring all pejorative jibes and dissonance in parliament and also made by some members of LOL. If they can't form a logical and convincing argument, they resort to name calling. When this happens it always stops me from contributing.

It's a bit like road-rage. Show me the person that hasn't made a mistake on the road and received a honk on the horn for it. If I make a mistake I raise a hand in apology. As for the "finger flip", it's only a very ignorant form of face-saving.

Humour sometimes manages to defuse a situation. Once someone said to me "why don't you go and get f----d. I just replied "Do you think I haven't tried ?"