Mad King Malcolm

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The mad splendour of King Malcolm (really well written article)

As I'm sure not many people here follow Australian politics - Malcolm Turnbull is the opposition leader and he's basically done a really crap job. This is a shame, because when he knocked the last opposition leader out of his place he looked like he was going to make for a really strong, sane opposition leader. The Liberals have a tendency to go all crazy-right-wing on us, but Turnbull is very moderate and hell, even progressive in some areas (which he didn't follow up when he took control, but still - I remember when he was pushing for civil unions and such).

Now his party has disintegrated into fighting with a great deal wanting to sink the Government's carbon emissions trading bill, while Turnbull's come up with a compromise with the government and is standing his ground. Awesomely. This is the most entertaining politics I've seen in years. It gives me some hope that Turnbull could be the opposition leader we were promised, even - but that's secondary to the sheer entertainment value of him turning up the charisma and battling it out with his party.

I doubt I'll ever vote for the man - but hell yes - go Turnbull!

 

It's odd to think of the "liberals" going "crazy-right-wing", what with me being an American and all, but other than that it sounds like the guy may have had a turning of heart, a realization that he went into politics to do something and that, liked or no, now's the chance. Well, maybe. Either that or he just think's he's invincible. He wouldn't be the first politician that's happened to.

Good luck down south there!

 

It seems that McAbbott was from his mother's womb untimely ripped

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/01/2758221.htm

The Liberal party has just taken a turn for the completely-out-of-touch (and will probably be a lot less entertaining). Tony Abbott is a hardcore conservative Catholic who idolises John Howard (the guy we threw out on his arse in the last election for dicking us over one too many times). His views on pretty much all social issues are the opposite of what opinion polls show the Australian public is at. Also, no one thinks he'd make a very good prime minister when put up against Turnbull and Hockey, as per the opinion polls a few days ago.

Oh well. I guess it was fun while it lasted. Back to ignoring the failfest that is Australian politics, I guess.

 

Depends on what you mean by liberal. In some countries, that tends to mean "small government, low taxes" - more like the US definition of "libertarian" rather than "liberal," and afaik US libertarians tend to support the GOP recently, at least as far as the economy goes. I think in Australia the left-wing position is covered by the Labour party.