Hasbeen, you think Rudd and Turnbull are 'pretty boys'?
Gee, I would hate to see the ugly ones in your eyes then!

As for brains, I would suggest that both Rudd and Turnbull have more brain power than all of us put together, however, Rudd had a nasty streak going on to add to his intelligence. Thus, he ended up showing his true colours, and lost favoritism.

Turnbull is yet to show us all his true colours as a PM, so I don't think it is fair to judge him yet really. You certainly didn't judge ol' Tones straight away like that did you?
Even when Tones knighted Prince Phillip, wore his budgie smugglers for all to see, and suggested we give all that paid parental leave money for rich mummies, you still looked at him with rose-colored glasses.

Obviously, even most of his own party saw through him in the end......

"wore his budgie smugglers for all to see" there is plenty to attack Abbott over without resorting to that sexist stuff.

I'm pretty sure you would be amongst those who are annoyed when female politicians are attacked on the basis of what they wear (or how they look). In the case of Abbott and his much maligned budgie smugglers they or something very similar is the correct attire for event swimming (and if a male prefers for any other activity where swimmers are accepted attire).

Regardless of his faults Abbott is very fit and the pictures I've seen of him in his budgie smugglers have typically been associated with swimming so what's the problem with been wearing budgie smugglers?

R0bert

Yes, I know how annoyed you must be with all those nasty feminists (and many others too) being affronted by seeing Tony posing in his budgie smugglers RObert, and it is good to see you stand up for the man.

However, anything anyone ever says about his brief swimming attire would surely pale into insignificance against the virtual plethora of snide remarks about the normal everyday attire of probably every female politician that ever was.

So no, I don't have a problem pointing out the ugly briefs he wore swimming, whether he is fit or not. We are all entitled to our opinions on the clothes other people wear, as was very clear with the constant commentary on Julia Gillards attire.
I was certainly not alone in my feelings about the briefs either, as it was mentioned a multitude of times by many manly journalists as well....

Dear Poirot,

I'm not sure I was making the case that the change of leadership was ho hum more that the will of the people had forced a change of leader without having to endure another year of his dysfunctional prime ministership.

As to how he got to power in the first place my take is that the serious hiding the Libs got when Rudd came to power, including Howard losing his seat, meant they were more happy to go with the Pitbull than the Dalmatian. Desperate times – desperate measures and all that. They needed him to knock down the door but once he got among the china he proceeded to wreak the joint.

Once ensconced Abbott cemented the right behind him and became too hard to easily shift. It took some seriously dire polling to make it happen. We really do need him to follow Rudd and Gillard out of politics. In a very real it will signal the end of a vicious and particularly nasty period in Australian politics.

I just watched Shorten on Q&A tonight. While I certainly don't think highly of the man he was so far ahead of Abbott it wasn't funny. Turnbull was going to be a different kettle of fish. I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw from Shorten this evening. He is still a long way from winning me over but it was a fair start.

I believe a sizable part of why he presented differently tonight can be attributable to Turnbull. The Abbott mimicking three word slogans where virtually non-existent and fulsome articulating of ideas and policies was much more at the fore.

Abbott's demise as leader has hopefully let our political discourse return to a less belligerent and more edifying tone.

For that we should thank him.

....I do not think the Abbott voters are going to be happy at all

Doog, the Abbott voters had lost faith in him already, myself included.

I'm always happy to admit when I'm wrong, the guy was a dud, he spent too much of his time worrying about minority groups with hidden agendas like the gay marriage brigade and spent too little time working on the big picture.

Suze.......Then again, he may well want to remain in parliament just to cause some disquiet amongst those former disciples ...

This is the liberals Suze, not the labor party.

Foxy, with all due respect you have had a lot of practice spotting poor leaders, you're a labor lover my dear and this gives you a huge advantage.

Paul, I lost faith in Abbott quite some time ago but the problem I saw was other than another leader from within, we had nothing because Shorten was, and still is, a dud!

Out of time for now.

"he (Abbott) spent too much of his time worrying about minority groups"

Yeah Butch, like the British royal family. Handing out a gong to that geriatric boffer, Prince Dill. The British royals represent 0.0000000000000001% of the worlds population, how more minority can you get! LOL.