Tony Abbott first interview since leadership coup with Ray Hadley.

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott interviewed by Ray Hadley

Lanai Scarr National Political Reporter
The Daily Telegraph
September 29,2015.

TONY Abbott is confident he would have won the next election had he been left as Prime Minister.

The dumped PM, who lost his job to Malcolm Turnbull in a coup two weeks ago, this morning dismissed negative opinion polls and said he had never done well in public opinion polls.

“I am confident that if I had continued at head of this government that’s what we would have had (a victory),” Mr Abbott told 2GB’s Ray Hadley.

“If you look at my polling I’ve always done badly in the polls.

“You can be not popular in the ratings and at the same time lead a very effective opposition and government.”

Mr Abbott said internal party polling in the lead up to the Canning by-election showed the Liberal party would have won 57 per cent of the vote which is about what the final result was on the day.

He said the timing of the leadership spill was carefully coordinated to ensure a challenge was successful.

Turnbull wins Liberal leadership

“Because a strong result in Canning would have put paid to this notion that somehow I wouldn’t survive the next election,” Mr Abbott said.

He said he was doing OK after losing the nation’s top job, however was still not yet ready to make a decision on his future.

“57-years-old is still young,” he said of his age.

“I’m not ready to retire and I still have a lot to contribute to public life.”

Mr Abbott also lamented that he never watched his back while Prime Minister which may have led to his demise.

“I never believed in watching my own back,” Mr Abbott said in his first public interview since being rolled.

“Any leader who is watching his back is not focusing on the main job at hand. If the leader ever starts to play internal politics than the leader is in trouble.

“I always knew that politics was a brutal bruising business. It is a game of snakes and ladders and I’ve got a snake at the moment.”

Mr Abbott urged voters to stick with the Coalition at the next election and Malcolm Turnbull as Prime Minister.

“I can appreciate there are a lot of people out there who are dismayed by what has happened,” he said.

“But it would be even worse if we end up with the sixth prime minister in six years.”

Mr Abbott also denied that he ever thought about cutting loose former Treasurer Joe Hockey and his chief-of-staff Peta Credlin in order to placate any push for a change of leader.

“The idea that those people hungry for advancement would be mollified by if Joe went or my chief-of-staff is just wrong,” he said.

“They were not going to be put off if they were thrown a few human sacrifices and it is wrong to feed this beast.

“Joe and I were blood brothers when it comes to economic policy. The idea that I would have sacrificed Joe to save myself is just dead wrong.”

Mr Abbott also refused to weigh in on if he felt betrayed by his former deputy Julie Bishop and close ally Scott Morrison.

“I’d rather focus on the good work that they did,” he said.

“In the end all of us have got to answer to God and our consciousnesses and I am not going to get into who should have said what.”

On Scott Morrison in particular, Mr Abbott said: “At some point in time I’m sure we’ll have a conversation and we will resolve these things.”

Mr Abbott also urged politicians to stop the revolving door of prime ministers for the sake of the nation.

“This is a real problem for our country. The government can’t do what is necessary if you are subject to death by polls,” he said.

“We’ve had five prime ministers in five years. We are worse than Italy and only just better than Greece.

“For a country that has always had stable and effective government this is hardly the face we want to put to the world.”


Malcolm Turnbull acted when he did because he knew Canning by-election would strengthen Tony Abbott

Daniel Meers
The Daily Telegraph
September 29 2015.

FORMER Prime Minister Tony Abbott says Malcolm Turnbull executed him the week before the Canning by-election because he was on track for a strong result at the Canning ballot box.

In a 30 minute interview with Radio 2GB host Ray Hadley, aired live on television, Mr Abbott said his executioners were aware internal polling in Canning showed the government was on track for 57 per cent of the vote.

“One of the reasons why the ballot had to be brought on the week it was brought on by the proponents of a ballot was because a strong result in Canning, which is what we were going to get, would have put 

paid to this notion that somehow I was unelectable because of the polls,’’ he said.

-------------------------------------------

The Truth about Tony Abbott............

Loss of Tony Abbott as prime minister is a time of sorrow

Andrew Bolt
The Daily Telegraph
September 28 2015

NOW Tony Abbott is gone I can finally tell the truth about him. Folks, you made a big mistake with this bloke.

No, no. The mistake wasn’t that you voted for him.

In fact, you got one of the finest human beings to be Prime Minister.

In many ways he seemed too moral for the job, yet he achieved more in two years than the last two Labor prime ministers achieved in six.

Compare. Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard left us with record deficits after blowing billions on trash — on overpriced school halls, “free” insulation that killed people, green schemes that collapsed, “stimulus” checks to the dead.

They meanwhile opened our borders to 50,000 illegal immigrants and drowned 1200. They hyped the global warming scare and forced us to pay a job-killing carbon tax just to pretend they were saving us.

But Abbott? I won’t go through the whole list: how he stopped the boats, curbed spending, scrapped the useless carbon and mining taxes, led the world’s defiance of deadly Russian strongman Vladimir Putin and made us safer from terrorism.

He even signed three free trade deals to secure jobs for our kids — including one with China that the last three governments couldn’t clinch.

And he did all this in the face of astonishing heckling and even vilification from our media class, and despite often feral opposition in the Senate.

But your mistake was not to care about all that. Deeds didn’t count with you. Image was all.

And so you told the pollsters you didn’t like Abbott. You believed the vicious crap written about him, until his MPs finally panicked and dumped him.

Your mistake was that you couldn’t look behind the flim flam — the way Abbott looked, the way he spoke, the way he walked, the way he ate an onion — to see what he’d actually done for you and for your country.

You even laughed at some of his finest qualities and emblems of his public service. Journalists ridiculed his work as a lifesaver by mocking his costume and body hair. They dismissed his fire fighting service as just a photo-op. Wrote off his patriotism as bigotry.

When he defended women, he was called insincere. When he warned that our finances were in strife or that terrorism menaced us, they called him a scaremonger.

And you believed them. You let people treat like absolute dirt a man who had a record of volunteerism no prime minister has equalled — working in Aboriginal communities, lifesaving, firefighting, helping people in natural disasters, and raising money for women’s shelters and a hospice for dying children.

And none of it was done just to puff his CV for an election pamphlet.

The only reason I know Abbott helped people secure their homes after one Sydney storm is that my wife’s uncle asked the head of the team getting the tree off his house if that really was Abbott over there, helping to cut it away.

Shush, said the captain. He doesn’t like people knowing.

Now, I must declare straight up — I call Tony Abbott a friend.

So you’ll call me biased. You’ll laugh that I can write this massive praise of him when almost everyone else is horse-laughing. And you’ll say that’s why I see more qualities in Abbott than are actually there.

BLOG WITH ANDREW BOLT

But you’ll just be making another mistake.

See, I don’t think Abbott is a great man because he’s my friend. He’s my friend because he’s a great man. Greater than the people who tore him down.

He’s my friend especially because he’s not those things that so many journalists wrote — including some who must have known what they wrote were lies.

Truth is that Abbott is not a thug, bully, racist, fool, liar, woman-hater, homophobe or bigot. He’s not cruel or lacking compassion.

If he were any of those things he would not be my friend. Those are deal breakers for me. Those I love best are people of honour, warmth and kindness.

Tony Abbott is one such man, and that he has been betrayed and deposed doesn’t just break my heart. It makes me fear for this country. I can only hope that Australians will one day wake up to what they’ve tossed away.

Sorry to sound so melodramatic, but here are some glimpses of the man I know — ones that put the lie to the trash that even big-name correspondents peddled about him.

A woman hater? Ask his daughters or female chief of staff. Ask the many women on his staff, so loyal that he had one of the lowest turnovers of modern prime ministers.

A crash-through insensitive bully with no people skills? Ask my children how gentle he was when he called around. Ask one of my 2GB listeners, Pat, who rang in to say how moved he was that Abbott, on the way to a crucial Question Time on the day the carbon tax was repealed, still had the time to ring Pat’s dying brother.

Or consider this: just minutes after Malcolm Turnbull told Abbott he was challenging for his job, Abbott still honoured a promise to meet girl guides, rather than hit the phones to save himself.

Too loyal? Well, true, yet when I once asked why he wouldn’t buy off his critics by sacking Joe Hockey as Treasurer, Abbott told me he knew Hockey actually had the talent to be great, and would be if given another chance.

A homophobe? Abbott actually had a deep friendship with one of my friends, too, the out-and-proud gay commentator Christopher Pearson, and even helped carry the coffin of this much-missed man.

In fact, when one Fairfax writer this year accused Abbott — on entirely fictitious evidence — of having had a “possibly homophobic” moment, a gay adviser on Abbott’s staff texted me in rage: “If PM was so homophobic he wouldn’t be sharing the C1 car with me.”

Every Prime Minister thinks they don’t get the press they deserve. But I bet Abbott’s friends would agree that none could have been so different in the flesh from what you read in the papers — and so much better. Shame on the journalists responsible for this great slander.

Yes, I know Abbott made mistakes, and I was hard on the worst. I know he was too stubborn. And I know he was clumsy in selling himself.

I admit I even quarrelled with him privately when he too-nobly refused to whack Labor leader Bill Shorten over some detail of national security.

No, the country before politics, he declared. I could have shaken the silly bugger, who played politics like it was cricket when everyone else was cage fighting.

God, he wouldn’t even do the populist thing and just promise to build our next submarines in Adelaide, and to hell with the cost or national interest.

But that was Abbott, and for me character always counts in the end.

That’s why I say: this country has despised and rejected a great servant. It is a time of sorrow.

------------------------------------

Australia's Finest cheer Tony Abbott as he leaves office and makes his way home to Sydney's Northern Beaches.

Moving tribute for ousted PM Tony Abbott before last hurrah at Kirribilli House

Ben McClellan
The Daily Telegraph
September 19 2015.

AS he boarded his Royal Australian Air Force VIP jet for the last time, former Prime Minister Tony Abbott was given a round of applause by the crew in military uniform.

The touching gesture to a man, known on board as down to earth and polite, at Fairbairn air base in Canberra yesterday afternoon started Mr Abbott’s short trip to Sydney where he joined wife Margie to finish packing up their prime ministerial lives at Kirribilli House.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull departed in another RAAF jet an hour later.

Mr Abbott greeted his wife with a hug in the doorway before changing out of his suit and trademark blue tie and donning a blue jumper and jeans before packing his car.

Strapping his kayak to the top of his 1995 Mercedes-Benz 280, which he famously claimed in 2010 did not make him a “silvertail” because it was 15 years old, the former prime minister appeared like any 

other man moving home.

Margie Abbott scooped up their family dog Maisie as she carried flowers and a tennis ball thrower for the dog,

Why Abbott had to GO

Speaking publicly for the second time since his ousting on Monday, Mr Abbott told reporters outside the iconic waterfront property it had been a “tremendous honour” to serve his nation.

“Shortly, Margie and I will be driving out of Kirribilli House for the last time as residents,” he said.

“To the people of Australia, it has been a tremendous, a tremendous, honour to be your prime minister and I thank you very, very much indeed,” he said.

The Abbotts left in separate cars with Mr Abbott waving to the media as he drove off.

Despite driving off , he later returned to host a 40-year reunion for his former St Ignatius College classmates at Kirribilli House.

The swanky party for about 60 people was to celebrate a Saint Ignatius College, Riverview school reunion.

Mr Abbott could be seen swigging a beer as he eagerly awaited the class of 1975.

The first busload of guests arrived at 7.15pm on a Murrays Coach.

Mr Abbott barely showed his face outdoors except to meet and greet former school mates.

From beyond the gates of Kirribilli House, loud laughter, cheers and the rattling of bottles could be heard.
Just before 8pm a Murrays coach full of Mr Abbott’s former classmates arrived at the gate of the lodge.

The event had been planned a while ago and is being privately funded. Funds raised will go to charity, The Australian reports.

After two years at Kirribilli House, with its charming period setting and stunning harbour views, the Abbotts are set to return to their suburban home in the northern beaches suburb of Forestville.

Ray Hadley Scott Morrison four days after Liberal Party leadership coup d'état

Scott Morrison speaks with Ray Hadley four days AFTER Liberal Party leadership  coup d'état.

Scott Morrison speaks with Ray Hadley four days BEFORE Liberal Party leadership  coup d'état.

Scott Morrison tells Ray Hadley: ‘I voted for Tony Abbott but he threw Hockey under the bus’

LUCY CARNE AND DAVE MEDDOWS

Daily Telegraph

September 18, 2015 7:41am

Scott Morrison challenged to swear on Bible he didn’t undermine Abbott

Didn’t understand Abbott move to oust Hockey and give him Treasury

2GB host Ray Hadley insisted Abbott felt “betrayed” by Morrison

SCOTT Morrison has revealed the former Prime Minister Tony Abbott threw Treasurer Joe Hockey “under the bus” in an 11th hour bid to save his leadership.

In a fiery exchange with “good mate” Ray Hadley on 2GB this morning, the Social Services minister said he was shocked Mr Abbott offered him the role of treasurer in the lead up to the leadership spill.

“I didn’t understand it,” Mr Morrison said on 2GB.

“I didn’t understand how if we were to be successful that night, how we would explain that to the Australian people.

“I didn’t understand why he wanted me to pick a fight with Joe Hockey and throw him under the bus.”

Scott Morrison picks up the bible during his fiery debate with Ray Hadley on 2GB this morning.

Before his heated exchange on 2GB, Scott Morrison signed a hard hat that will be auctioned for charity. Picture: Twitter / Stephanie Borys

Mr Hadley pressed Mr Morrison to swear on the Bible that he had not plotted with the new Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to overthrow Mr Abbott.

While Mr Morrison initially refused to bring faith into the argument, he flatly denied he undercut Tony Abbot to elevate Mr Turnbull.

“Absolutely not, I had no role in his demise,” Mr Morrison said.

Mr Hadley continued to press him, saying the Australian people had a right to know the truth. and the only way to do that was to swear on a Bible.

“I’m not going to use my faith for a stunt for your program,” Mr Morrison said.

“You get to judge my policies but you don’t get to judge my faith.”

Mr Hadley also revealed Mr Abbott felt “betrayed” by Mr Morrison, saying a source close to the former leader said he felt Mr Morrison had “blotted his copybook”.

“Mr Abbott thinks you ran with the foxes and hunted with the hounds,” Mr Hadley said.

A nonplussed Mr Morrison replied: “Well, he’s wrong ... At the end of the day I voted for Tony Abbott. I gave him utter loyalty for the entire time I served.”

“You get to judge my policies but you don’t get to judge my faith” — Scott Morrison

He also said he had not used the automatic deleting Wikr messaging service to secretly bolster support for Mr Turnbull with factional allies and had in fact warned Mr Abbott of an impending coup.

“I said on Friday to the PM’s office that things were pretty febrile and they should be on high alert,” he said.

Scott Morrison conceded Tony Abbott offered him the role of Treasurer in a bid to save himself

Ray Hadley had a fiery interview with Scott Morrison on his role in the Abbott coup

Mr Morrison also revealed he has not spoken to Mr Abbott since Monday night’s leadership ballot.

“I said good luck after the ballot and we shook hands,” he said.

Mr Morrison has been accused of deliberately “running dead” in the lead-up to the coup when he could have been rallying coalition troops to support the ousted leader.

It was revealed earlier this week that Mr Abbott had been warned by allies not to trust Mr Morrison as far back as May amid fears he would two-face the leader — offering support but allegedly double dealing behind his back.

Social Services Minister Scott Morrison speaks to the media after a radio interview with Ray Hadley in which he revealed Tony Abbott had offered him the position of Treasurer in a last-minute bid to save 

himself.

Concerns escalated last week before Mr Turnbull’s leadership challenge when it became obvious the Social Services Minister was not actively supporting Mr Abbott.

However witnesses told The Australian they saw Mr Morrison’s ballot paper in the Liberal Party room on Monday night and it showed he voted for Mr Abbott.

Mr Morrison is likely to benefit from the change of leadership having been tipped to take on the role of treasurer from Mr Hockey.

It comes as Liberal frontbencher Christopher Pyne told Mr Abbott he didn’t expect there would be a leadership challenge this week, 24 hours before he jumped ship and sided with Malcolm Turnbull.

The eduction minister confirmed on Friday that Mr Abbott had his support the day before the spill which resulted in him losing the prime ministership.

“The truth is on Sunday there was no leadership ballot, on Monday there was, then I made an assessment,” Mr Pyne told the Nine Network’s Today show this morning.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Minister for Social Services Scott Morrison at Parliament House in Canberra. Mr Morrison has been tipped to take on the new role of Treasurer.

Mr Pyne said Mr Abbott was given a warning by the party room in February and seven months later things still weren’t any better.

“It was very hard for anyone to argue that he wasn’t given absolutely every opportunity to prove that he was the best person to lead the party,” he said.

Mr Pyne, who has been mooted as a possible replacement for Kevin Andrew as Defence Minister, was one of the more high-profile Liberal MPs to back Mr Turnbull in Monday’s leadership vote.

Originally published as Hadley and Morrison in bible bust-up

Turnbull and Co might just pay for their disgraceful lack of character

Why Tony Abbott was dumped.Lord Monckton and The Great American Bubble Machine

Malcolm Turnbull will fail if he can’t heal the Liberal Party

Andrew Bolt 
The Daily Telegraph
September 17, 2015 

PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s biggest problem isn’t Bill Shorten. No, knocking off that soiled Labor leader should be a cinch. Far more dangerous to Turnbull are the Liberals disgusted by the treachery and deceit that went into assassinating former leader Tony Abbott.

There is almost a revulsion among influential MPs, not just with Turnbull but his deputy, Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop. There is even anger with Scott Morrison, until now a hero of conservatives and about to become Turnbull’s treasurer.

For some this is now a moral question. They know they should be loyal to their party. They know Turnbull can beat Shorten. And they know their duty is to help Turnbull do that, given how unfit Shorten is to lead this country.

Yet Turnbull’s plotters make their skin crawl. I’ve talked to MPs, even moderates, who are sickened. Some wonder why they got into politics or even whether they should join a new party. That just adds venom to the anger that many conservative Liberals already feel for Turnbull — for a man of the Left they think has hijacked their party.

Let me give three examples of the scheming that makes it hard for Turnbull to expect much loyalty in return.

First, there was Julie Bishop’s disloyal silence. As deputy Liberal leader, Bishop had a duty to warn Abbott of threats to his leadership.

Yet on Channel 10’s The Project this week, she admitted she had heard of the planned challenge to Abbott — announced on Monday — “in the days beforehand”, although she later claimed “I had no idea of the timing until the day before”.

But Bishop did not warn Abbott of Turnbull’s plot until Monday. She’d been waiting to have the reports “confirmed by others”, she said.

Oh, really?

To add to the suspicion, when Abbott rang Bishop’s mobile last Saturday to discuss rumours of this challenge, Bishop did not answer and took a full day to ring back. No wonder, perhaps. Bishop had spent that Saturday at a Sydney charity event where she’d met Turnbull.

That’s been too much for Liberal Premier Colin Barnett, of Bishop’s home state of Western Australia. He accused her of “duplicity”, adding: “And there’s probably been some disloyalty.”

Second, there was Scott Morrison’s refusal to help Abbott defeat Turnbull. Morrison, the Liberal who stopped the boats, was emerging as Abbott’s natural successor and the star of the Liberals’ conservative wing. On Monday morning, just hours before Turnbull sprang his trap, Morrison insisted on 2GB he had “no idea” of any possible challenge. He said he was an Abbott supporter, so “if they were (plotting) they would not be talking to me”.

Interesting to hear Morrison talking to Hadley the morning of the coup he maintains total ignorance of. Tomorrow he will again appear on the Hadley show It will be an interesting show to say the least.

Yet later that day Morrison refused Abbott’s offer to be deputy Liberal leader on a joint ticket with Abbott against Turnbull and Bishop.

He was also effectively refusing to be Abbott’s new treasurer, since the deputy has their pick of portfolios.

True, Abbott was even then still foolishly reluctant to sack his existing Treasurer, the embattled Joe Hockey.

His offer really meant it was up to Morrison to sack Hockey and run against Bishop. But had Morrison said yes to Abbott’s offer, he and his five supporters would have helped to defeat Turnbull and would have encouraged other Liberal waverers to join them. A yes would also have meant that Morrison, a Pentecostal Christian conservative opposed to gay marriage, would have saved a fellow conservative from a Leftist and gay-marriage crusader

Yet Morrison chose not to fight for Abbott or for his beliefs. While privately telling Liberals and some journalists he remained an Abbott supporter, he gave no press conference to defend him and his coterie of MPs voted for Turnbull.

True, Morrison figured Abbott had poor judgment and was not a long-term bet. He also didn’t want to be in a contest with Bishop or in Abbott’s fight with Turnbull and will still get his reward — Hockey’s job as Treasurer. But where was the fighting for principle?

And then there was the sabotage.

Abbott, at his farewell press conference, denounced the “white-anting” by Liberal MPs, the “self-serving claims” peddled to journalists by his anonymous critics to do the work of “the assassin’s knife”.

It is too easily forgotten that Abbott by May had largely recovered in the polls, even drawing level with Labor in one. Journalists had started to question Shorten’s leadership instead. But Abbott’s recovery was then blown up. He was rocked by another burst of leaks, destabilisation and distractions by his own side that continued right up until Monday.

For instance, friendly journalists were told Bishop had warned Abbott to sack Hockey and that she’d told colleagues that Labor seemed to be running dead in next Saturday’s Canning by-election (allegedly to ensure the unpopular Abbott stayed prime minister until next year’s election). Abbott’s poll figures collapsed. They’d got him.

But, sure, no change of leaders is painless. And Turnbull’s plotters are right: they have given the Liberals a leader more popular than the man he replaced. By making the Liberals more electable, they may have done the party a big favour. And isn’t their higher loyalty to the party, not to Abbott, whose mistakes caused more damage than anything done by the plotters?

Yet many Liberal voters seem red-hot with anger. On Monday, more than 1000 sent me angry emails and messages, almost all abusing Turnbull and most saying they could never vote for the Liberals again if he led them. Callers to conservative talk shows are also spitting chips.

Conservatives were always going to be furious about having their party stolen by the Left. But many are now appalled by the treachery as well.

Alternative Conservative Party for disaffected Liberal Voters with the final say going to Stephanie Legendary Conservative 2GB caller

So this is now Turnbull’s great challenge. It will take all his charm and persuasiveness to heal a division that could wreck his campaign and even split his party.

He has already had one expensive reminder that many government MPs simply do not trust his word or his instincts. Take the Nationals, whose 15 House of Representatives MPs are needed by the Liberals to form government.

The Nationals on Tuesday arced up at Turnbull’s election as Liberal leader. They refused to back any government led by him until he’d signed a deal with them.

They know Turnbull is a warming alarmist and a bit carried away by his own brilliance. So they made Turnbull not only promise to spend $2 billion more on the Nationals’ pet schemes, but to guarantee he would not change Abbott’s policies on gay marriage and global warming.

Oh, and he had to give Nationals deputy leader Barnaby Joyce control over water policy.

That’s why Abbott took so long on Tuesday to formally resign. He had to wait for Turnbull to sign the Nationals’ deal. Until then, Turnbull couldn’t guarantee he had support in Parliament to form government.

That is just one sign of the tensions that threatens Turnbull most. So forget Shorten. He won’t much bother Turnbull.

No, Turnbull’s first big campaign must be not to destroy Labor but to heal the Liberals he now leads.

New PM Malcolm Turnbull is the ultimate insiders’ politician, A coup for the chattering classes.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

A coup for the chattering classes

Miranda Devine 
The Daily Telegraph
September 16 2015

New PM Malcolm Turnbull is the ultimate insiders’ politician, a man with an ego so health

The insiders have installed one of their own in Malcolm Turnbull. They never accepted Tony Abbott, with his religious faith, his monarchist beliefs, his humility, his kindness, his old-fashioned notions of duty, honour and loyalty.

You could see it every week on the ABC’s Q&A, the smug TV program that best captures their privileged leftist views. And on Monday night, when news of Abbott’s decapitation was announced, the audience erupted with rapturous applause.

The inner city elites, increasingly preoccupied with symbolic issues, and out of touch with the unfashionable suburbs, never felt Abbott legitimately was Prime Minister. He embarrassed them. He didn’t play their game.

On the totemic issues that bookmarked his leadership of the Liberal Party — on climate change and same sex marriage — he was starkly at odds with them. They saw him as representing an Australia they revile, full of unsophisticated, parochial, materialistic, misogynistic redneck bigots.


His mistake was generously trying to appease the chattering classes with symbolic gesture and big-hearted compromise. But they just reviled his efforts as a sign of weakness, and were emboldened for the eventual kill.

For the leftists who dominate the media, academia, legal circles, who inhabit the Canberra bubble, and the stylish inner circle of Wentworth, Turnbull was more to their taste. He subscribes to all the symbolic “progressive” causes dear to their hearts: climate alarmism, “marriage equality”, a republic.

They don’t wince when he opens his mouth. They can imagine themselves being invited to dinner parties at his Point Piper mansion overlooking the glittering harbour. They anticipate with pride his bustling self assurance on the global stage, whether in New York addressing a UN conference or swanning around a climate change conference in Paris, talking up technocratic solutions to theoretical problems.

Maybe he’s right, and his optimism and self belief are what’s needed to boost economic confidence. Having a competent cut-through Treasurer in Scott Morrison will be his best asset, and one which Abbott denied himself.

But whether Turnbull’s commitment to what he and John Howard both yesterday repeatedly described as “the broad church” of the Liberal Party, encompassing its conservative and “small L liberal” traditions, stretches to subsuming his ego for the good of internal harmony, will determine his success.

Morrison, the future Treasurer, will be crucial to keeping Turnbull’s instincts in check, keeping the conservatives in the party room onside and the Coalition electorally viable.

But nothing will stop the high hopes of the new Greens Leader Richard Di Natale, who sees in Turnbull a fellow traveller on climate and progressive social issues.

Milling around on the lawn in front of Parliament House where the TV networks had set up shop yesterday, Di Natale, in Tommy Hilfiger spectacles, declared himself ready and eager to do business with Turnbull.

Parliament’s youngest MP, Wyatt Roy, who gave up on Abbott in February, at the time of the spill that wasn’t, was equally enthusiastic, declaring Turnbull to be a post-partisan leader in the mode of John Key, David Cameron and Mike Baird.

Turnbull promises so much to idealists, not least the mirage of politics without partisanship, of a frictionless integration of the “broad church”, a bloodless union of left and right. He is the ultimate insiders’ politician, a man with an ego so healthy that in his victory speech he had to say twice how “humbled” he was.

By contrast, Tony Abbott was self effacing to the end. Watching his final speech as Prime Minister yesterday afternoon in the blustery courtyard outside his office, admirers could only lament what might have been.

“There will be no wrecking, no undermining, and no sniping. I’ve never leaked or backgrounded against anyone,” he said, before grimly itemising the mostly unheralded achievements of his abbreviated reign.

“300,000 more people are in jobs. Labor’s bad taxes are gone. We’ve signed Free Trade Agreements with our largest trading partners … The biggest infrastructure program in our country’s history … A spotlight is being shone into the dark and corrupt corners of the union movement … We’ve responded to the threats of terror … The boats have stopped and … we’ve been better able to display our compassion to refugees. And … we’ve made $50 billion of repairs to the Budget.”

He admitted his was not a perfect government.

“We have been a government of men and women, not a government of Gods walking upon the earth. Few of us, after all, entirely measure up to expectations.

“The nature of politics has changed in the past decade. We have more polls and more commentary than ever before. Mostly sour, bitter, character assassination.

“Poll driven panic has produced a revolving door Prime Ministership which can’t be good for our country. And a febrile media culture has developed that rewards treachery.”

It was a searing speech, but ultimately gracious. For those listening in the courtyard, however, it was almost impossible to hear, thanks to a media helicopter hovering noisily overhead. It was a fitting metaphor for a Prime Minister whose fine words and worthy achievements were so often ignored and derided by the chatterati. History will be kinder.

Julie Bishop Awakens Malcolm from GQ induced Slumber

Malcolm and Julie's victory speech 

Australian Liberal Party (Conservative) Leadership decided. Turnbull wins Party ballot.

Australian PM Tony Abbott loses Liberal Party (Conservative) leadership and Prime Ministership.


Leadership spill was instigated by the resignation of Left wing and Media poster boy Malcolm Turnbull, and subsequent press conferences outlining why he no longer is prepared to serve under Tony Abbott as Leader and PM.

Leftist Media Pin Up Boy Malcolm Turnbull (aka. Prince of Darkness POD.)

Andrew Bolt Australia's ONLY Conservative Political TV Commentator and his guests discuss the past week in Australian Politics.

Andrew Bolt Australia's ONLY Conservative Political TV Commentator and his guests discuss the past week in Australian Politics.

The Bolt Report 17814

Catch Up: The Bolt Report June 8 2014,Palmer United Party and the LOONS who will rule Australia for the next six years

“The danger to Australia is not Clive Palmer but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the control of the Australian senate. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of a Palmer controlled senate than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man and his fellow senate team control their senate and the legislation that comes before it.

The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Clive Palmer and his Palmer United senate team, who are merely symptoms of what ails Australia. 
Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their Prince.

Our great nation,Australia can survive a Clive Palmer and his Senators,the Greens and various other Loons elected to the Australian senate from time to time, after all they are merely fools.
Australia is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made them their senators.” 
Adapted from anon,by ANV. to suit Australia's present political situation.

Addiction made my life hell, says Palmer United Party senator-elect Jacqui Lambie

• JENNIFER CRAWLEY
• MERCURY
• JANUARY 11, 2014