I actually like Malcolm Turnbull. Like Malcolm Fraser, he provides proof that the Liberal Party includes forward thinking, progressive people. He is surrounded by the other side of the Liberal Party. People like Tony Abbott are sneaky, manipulative, over-entitled and self-serving. John Howard trained and promoted those type of people and it will take a few years to undo his legacy.

The liberal Party just needs a few years for those people to retire.

The Liberals, if they are brave enough, couls again become Liberal, in the Menzies mold, why do they tell us for the benefit of a thing called the economy workers must no longer get penalty rates? why lift retirement age to 70? why the war on unions? tax cuts for the banks? no pension rises? in what way can the current Liberals justify this economy overriding the word community? is the world's future more poor and more for the already rich, can you be a Liberal party that demands less for more be the norm?

Well Benk proves you can fool some of the people ALL of the time.

Well it seems the consensus is that the Liberals can save themselves by becoming Labor-lite. So two parties having essentially the same policies fighting over the minutia and each having their turn at governing every second election or so. Seems like a plan.

Australia is in a downward spiral of economic decline and as that deepens the fights over the shrinking pie will become fierce and shrill. Governments, unable to meet the claimed needs of the populace will be increasingly under pressure and will be replaced by oppositions who claim to know the location of the magic pudding. And they will in turn be overturned when its found that they indeed know no more about how to satisfy growing demands than their predecessors. And down the spiral we'll go.

Perhaps, rather than trying to hold onto government by becoming more like the opposition, a truly bold conservative party would be bold enough to advocate conservative policies:

* that the fetishism over climate will be dispensed with. That Australia will no longer seek to be a world leader in CO2 reductions but will do what the rest of the world's doing and go for economic growth instead.

* that power prices and the reduction thereof will be the top priority and any form of power is acceptable so long as it can survive without subsidy

* there will be a halving of immigration this year and again in three years and that priority will be given to immigrants from cultures and sub-cultures compatible with current Australian culture.

* that there will be massive personal tax cuts fully funded by reductions in the size of government. That the Federal departments of education and health will be closed and all functions returned to the states. That all spending not directly related to the well-being of citizens will be curtailed. The arts, sport, cultural activities, mardi gras etc will no longer receive federal funding and all such funds will be used for the tax cuts.

/cont

/cont

* that all efforts will be made to remove government impediments to the mining and agricultural sectors.

* that all infrastructure spending must henceforth be fully self-funding.

The current corporate tax cuts should be abandoned and abandoned with a flourish. Labor in cahoots with the MSM have so poisoned the water that the cuts can never be sold in the current circumstances. Conservatives could console this loss with the knowledge that the cuts will become inevitable in the medium future as the rest of world follows the Trump corporate cuts. As with most things Australia will eventually do the economically responsible thing here, but only after we've tried everything else.

Currently both parties are infested with people and leaders whose main aim is power and career and prestige. Few are there because they have a notion of how to best organise things and a desire to do what's necessary as opposed to what's immediately popular.

But as we've seen in other countries where things become dire, true leaders can arise and be accepted and followed. But we've got a way to go yet before we start to climb out of the hole we've dug over the past decade or so.

rache,

re Private Ancillary Funds...

"Because it's a private fund he doesn't have to tell the public - or even the tax office - what he does with the non-donation component,"

That's rubbish.

Here's the ATO Private Ancillary Fund Guidelines ....

http://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2016C00435

In particular go to sections 24-29 about how everything must be disclosed. But a reading of the whole thing might assist your understanding.