"Oh someone else must have been posting using your name for the last 5 years Poirot."

Produce the goods, runner.

You can't...so you just go on your merry way spitting out whatever suits your argument.

"No Substance" would be a good replacement name for you on OLO..if you ever think of changing it from "runner"

'I'm not pushing for Turnbull at this stage of the game, individual.
As it stands , Abbott may yet snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.'

short memory Poirot maybe your surname is Lawrence.

Dear O Sung Wu,

I don't doubt that the lady you met - Bronwyn Bishop
was totally different from the woman we see as
Speaker in Parliament. Privately, she may well be
charming but as Speaker - she is definitely the most
biased and should not be tolerated. One only has to
watch "Question Time" in Parliament to see her
blatantly obvious bias - and that is something for which
there is no excuse and demeans the entire
parliamentary process.

As for Mr Abbott's and his government's performance thus
far - it has not been great as the country-wide deomonstrations
have indicated and the severe drop in the polls show.
People are simply not happy. We have to remember that Mr
Abbott did not win the election - Labor lost. Nobody wanted
Mr Abbott, but they wanted Labor even less.

As David Marr pointed out in the "Quarterly Essay,"
"Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott," -
"Australia doesn't want Tony Abbott. We never have. When
pollsters rang to ask who we wanted to take over from John
Howard or Brendan Nelson or Malcolm Turnbull we put Abbott
way down the list, usually at the bottom. As the years went by
and the number of Liberal contenders dwindled, we always wanted
someone else. Peter Costello even after he gave up the
leadership without a fight; Malcolm Turnbull even after the
climate sceptics brought him undone; or Joe Hockey the
untried hulk from morning television."

"We never wanted the man the Liberals gave us in December 2009.
Abbott was their pick, not ours. And the party was almost as
stunned as the nation."

"God almighty," one of the Liberals cried in the party room that
day. "What have we done?"

Good afternoon to you FOXY...

As always, it's your adroit research capacity that permits you to launch a solid argument whenever you need to support your views and your opinions. Whereas I, haven't got the slightest idea of the complicated machinations of how party politics work.

My views are and always have been conservative, I've never voted for Labor in my life. Yet in my memory (notwithstanding Mr Whitlam's dismissal, in Nov 1975) I've never known an Australian PM to be so scorned, so mocked or so vilified as Tony ABBOTT ?

Seemingly, some of that derision has emanated from those few,'faceless' but quisling members, from Mr ABBOTT'S own side of politics, which is particularly problematic and confounding ?

Many claim he's just straight out dumb ? How can that be, he's a Rhodes scholar. I will admit many of my LNP friends would prefer Malcolm TURNBULL as Prime Minister. Whereas, my own perception of Mr TURNBULL (there's that word 'perception' again), resonates strongly with that of deceit, treacherousness, and duplicitous. Where with Mr ABBOTT, what you see, is what you get. A gangling, awkward, sort of bloke, that's pretty well devoid of any chicanery and guile ?

FOXY there's a lesson I should learn, and learn rather quickly I would've thought. I realise I know next to nothing about politics per se, other than I don't trust any of 'em. A somewhat puerile admission to make, I'm sure you'll agree. It's for this reason, I should immediately refrain from any further commentary on the subject politics, lest I make an even bigger fool of myself than I have already ?

Foxy,

Is this the David Marr you cherry-picked your quote from?

http://pickeringpost.com/story/david-marr-a-hit-in-gay-community-only/503

Obviously both you and Pickering are committed to your views, and you are both welcome to them, predictable as you both can be. The remainder of the population though prefers some independence and balance.

o sung wu,

"Many claim he's just straight out dumb ? How can that be, he's a Rhodes scholar...."

I don't think he's "dumb" per se. He's obviously reasonably intelligent....as a scholar he's merely so-so...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/25/tony-abbott-just-about-makes-grade-as-rhodes-scholar

"His exam papers have been graded by Oxford’s time-honoured system based on the Greek alphabet. To get a first, you need some alphas (maybe two or more). Abbott hasn’t any. In fact the mark on his first paper, general philosophy from Descartes to present day, starts with the dreaded gamma – in other words, a third.

It will come as a surprise to few observers of the Australian political scene that Abbott’s strong suit was not philosophy. He gets a very low second for his moral and political philosophy exam, but good 2:1s for his political institutions, theory of politics and politics of developing countries papers."

Remembering also, that President George W. Bush, who "was" dumb (IMO) and who could barely string a sentence together without a gaffe, was the proud possessor of a degree from Yale and an MBA from Harvard.

Mr Abbott is merely a person who is useful to his masters. Mr Abbott doesn't care what he says to please them. Mr Abbott will lie to your face and then tell you he is keeping his commitments....even when it is clear that he has lied.

It takes special kind of integrity-free personality to do that and not feel a pang of guilt.