Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is ousted...

[c172]

He is replaced by Malcolm Turnbull. 54-44 vote.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-34245005

Things take forever here. That was a quickie!

[Faith No More]

The new leader will be Australia's fourth prime minister since 2013.

Well, it seems they have a quick turnaround.

[c172]

Yeah! And it seems like the citizens are somewhat left out ofi t.

[ignoramus]

Every fucking govt has not finished its term due to backstabbing. We're all past giving a shit anymore.
Politics has lost all respect these last few years in the eyes of the punter.

[The Valkyrie]

Beccs for Empress!

[Justtristo]

Every fucking govt has not finished its term due to backstabbing. We're all past giving a shit anymore.
Politics has lost all respect these last few years in the eyes of the punter.

To be honest when Kevin Rudd was ousted as Labor leader, Rudd was a popular Prime Minister and Labor was ahead in the opinion polls.  A lot of people found the ousting of Kevin Rudd as deeply shocking. Therefore, I see the removal of Julia Gillard as Labor leader three years later can be seen as Kevin Rudd’s revenge

[Aractus]

I'm actually very pleased with this result, and I'll explain why in a moment.

Yeah! And it seems like the citizens are somewhat left out ofi t.

Rubbish - the office of the Prime Minister is in the gift of the party. Let's not forget about when Governor General Kerr sacked Whitlam out of the blue. Turnbull is grossly mis-categorised by the BBC page you linked. It's not his support of climate change that is disliked, but his support for an ETS. Given that Gillard's ETS has already been overturned it would be untenable to return to that policy now.

As far as same-sex marriage goes, Abbott already split the party with his "captain's call". He allowed the National party members to sit in and argue the policy position in a Liberal party room meeting! He let the Nationals sit in and debate a Liberal policy - that didn't sit well with many Liberals. The Nationals have their policy, and the Liberal's don't sit in on their party room policy debates and try to change their policies, just as the Nat's don't sit in and have anything to say about what policy the Liberals take. So that was a really, really dumb move by Abbott. I can tell you that might have made the Nat's happy, but it made a lot of Liberals very unhappy. So hopefully Turnbull allows the party to re-debate the matter without the far-right influence of the Nationals in the party room, and comes out with a policy that Liberals support instead one forced upon them by Abbott and the Nats.

Shorten has no credibility anyway, we never once heard him state a position on same sex marriage that was ever anything other than the ALP policy - which for 5 of the 6 years of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government was to oppose it. Then Rudd decided that he'd changed his mind and started levelling all kinds of criticisms and attacks towards Abbott and others for being 'stuck in the past'. But he already had two years as Prime Minister during which he said the ALP would not support it.

His speech yesterday made him look really dumb - and his speech this morning wasn't much better. His role as a 'faceless man' (Labor party faction leader) is what enabled Rudd to be rolled swiftly without a party vote, and Gillard was confident of beating the 2013 leadership challenge, as was Swan and the rest of her supporters, until Shorten said he'd changed sides. To be honest, I think Shorten had no chance of ever beating Abbott anyway - and now he's got even less chance next year as Turnbull is much more likeable.

There are many problems with Abbott - and I've written to his office a couple of time to voice some of my concerns. By far the biggest problem is economics. Abbott and Hockey were giving contradictory messages to each other week-after-week. They go hand-in-hand together, and they love each other to bits, and show each other unquestionable loyalty, but they have an inconsistent policy message. For example, Abbott said that introducing a fairer paid parental leave scheme would be the 'cornerstone' of his prime-ministership - and then Hockey said "no it's not important right now". Then Abbott was forced to drop the cornerstone policy; and announced they would put a stop to the public service PPL scheme - and Hockey then came out and labelled it a 'rort' and a 'fraud' and said that people were 'double dipping' (see ). BUT, it was clearly explained to people by Labor when they introduced their half-assed PPL that "people could also access schemes already in place in their workplaces as well". And he was forced to admit this. One of the other offensive and obscene things that came out of Hockey's mouth was that "the poorest people either don't have cars or actually don't drive very far in many cases" .

But like Bronwyn Bishop, Abbott stuck with him and refused to sack him. But ultimately a lot of it comes down squarely on Abbott - he said that the paid parental leave scheme was going to be his signature policy. It's something he has a very strong personal belief in - it was to be paid for with a 1.5% tax levy on Australia's largest companies. He failed to explain it and get it through. Other economic policies include higher education reform announced and then dropped in the same breath, and GP co-payments announced and dropped in the same breath.

And it is abundantly clear Abbott wasn't running a cabinet government. He was making decisions himself without consulting the appropriate minister. People aren't going to miss him, he had his chance and he kept backing people he should have dropped (Bronwyn Bishop and Hockey) and he refused to lead a consultative government with his peers.

[Aractus]

And I might add that for all Abbott's "we are not the Labor party" rhetoric, he was the one who after forming the divisive same-sex marriage policy with the Nationals (which Christopher Pyne labelled as branch stacking!) then went ahead and told members that crossing the floor to exercise a conscious vote would be viewed as disloyalty! The right to exercise a conscious vote is a core Liberal Party value - it is what separates Liberal from Labor. Labor is the party that won't under any circumstances allow their constituents the right to exercise a conscious vote.

I believe strongly that Turnbull will reform this policy and refine it into something workable - either a date for plebiscite needs to be set - or preferentially the policy should be dumped so that we can push ahead with a referendum on the constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and forget about matters that do not require a referendum for change. If a plebiscite is going to go ahead then it needs to go ahead as soon as possible before the next election.

But look honestly it's a stupid dud policy. It costs tens of millions of dollars. A plebiscite is not enforceable - parliament would still need to vote on it. We haven't had one since the 1970's and that's because it's a stupid out of date way to make decisions that the parliament can decide - that's what they're elected to do. It's way out of touch with the present just like Abbott reintroducing knighthoods and damehoods (which had been discontinued in Australia in 1986 less than 10 years after their original introduction) and then promptly knighting Prince Philip - someone who isn't even an Australian, and is the exact opposite image of a liberated democracy. It's one thing to be a Monarch, but it's quite another to force those views on everyone - especially when you later admit this was another "captain's call" that the Cabinet had no involvement in deciding over.

And by the way, there's no chance that given a free vote on both sides of parliament that same-sex marriage legislation would get through the current Parliament. It'd come close, but it doesn't have support of at least 75 sitting MP's. So why Abbott felt he had to so forcefully preserve the status quo I'm not sure. Gillard never had any problem preserving the "we don't support it" position - and she's as atheist as they come. She's since changed her mind since leaving parliament mind you. A free vote won't do anything until one side decides on making the party vote "yes".