Paul,

The term progressive politically originally meant "favoring reform; radically liberal,". Until the 1970s this largely meant big government owning the means of production and dispensing social justice, i.e. essentially socialist. The crunch came in the late 70s when it became clear that the socialist economies were beginning to implode.

It then fell to Margaret Thatcher to radically reform the UK, with such dramatic success that most countries incl Australia followed suit, giving the UK and Aus virtually unbroken growth for 2 decades.

It was labour under Blair and Brown in the UK and Rudd and Gillard that started to unwind this boosting government involvement in most facets of life and business, increasing expenditure, and trying to restrict freedoms on the media and internet. In fact becoming regressive.

Calling the left "progressive" and the right "conservative" is newspeak from the left.

Left and right still do it for me.

Ergo...this govt is "far" right...

And employing the US term for rabid (and not very bright) far-right nutters - Tea Partiers.

P,

Yup and Labor are far left and are rabid and moronic communists.

SM,

"Yup and Labor are far left and are rabid and moronic communists."

Lol!

<<Yup and Labor are far left and are rabid and moronic communists.>>

Shadow, I'll take that as a "shot" from you on a little Aussie political forum, I don't thing you mean it, I give you some credit for intelligence, you as well as I know what "moronic communism" really is, something Uncle Joe practiced with great "success". I expect that from OTHERS amongst the 'Usual Suspects' on here, not you.

Moving On...

I just don't like the terms left and right, too abstract, trying to make sense of left/right, I'll say Turnbull is left of Abbott, on what, on everything, no he's not,therefore meaningless. No on some particular issue Turnbull may well be conservative whilst Abbott could be progressive.
I'll partly take your definition of 'progressive' as one who does favor reform, obviously including some degree of liberal thinking, liberal in the true sense of the word, not as one today could apply it to The Liberal (conservative) Party of Australia, as it now stands, very difficult these days to find the liberals in the Liberal Party, where are they, joined The Greens.
I actually meet a Green, before the last federal election who was ex army, ex Liberal Party, the fellow was so committed that he was seeking endorsement for the Senate as a Green. I liked him, a very articulate guy, with a good take on issues.
To be totally honest, if you meet Kevin Rudd, which I never have, you would have to discuss politics with him for a very long time before you would come to the conclusion he is a member of The Labor Party. If in deed you ever did, without him telling you so, as it would equally apply to Malcolm Turnbull and The Liberal Party. In fact it would be quite possible to switch Rudd and Turnbull around and you wouldn't even know what party they belonged to.
con't

con't
The political DNA of The Labor Party and The Liberal Party is 75% alike. The political DNA of Rudd and Turnbull is 99% alike. I'll just add for a laugh, the political DNA of Abbott and a chimpanzee is 100% alike, except the chimps smarter!