Tony Abbott: Is He A Liberal?

Australia is now governed by a reactionary, far right, religious clique, the likes of which I have never experienced. Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his cabinet, all sworn in clutching their bibles, have made it clear they are not governing for all Australians. They want to wind the clock back to the days when religion ruled everybody and everything.

I have voted Liberal for over forty years. Yet despite this loyalty to the party of which I was an active member for almost two decades, I shuddered when Tony Abbott was elected Opposition Leader. He is a born liar who cannot give straight answers to questions; and he is a political opportunist with thuggish tendecies and a blinkered view that religion is important whilst science is not. 

Bcause of Abbott, at the last election, for the first time, I could not bring myself to vote for the Liberal Party and I cannot see myself doing so again while he remains the leader. I resent that.

When taking power last September, he confirmed his retrogressive anti-science stance by eliminating the science portfolio and signalling his intent to destroy clean energy research. His repudiation of climate science - despite the clear scientific warnings - made it clear he will not support science or listen to scientists. The recent budget has slashed funds to the amazing CSIRO and to science generally, yet money is being poured into the travesty of the ridiculous school chaplain scheme.

Despite claims that everybody has to do the heavy lifting, the burden of the budget decisions has fallen on the poor and the sick, the elderly and the young unemployed. The excuse for the savage hits to the vulnerable was that Australia had a "budget emergency" - but if there really was such an "crisis" they would surely have taken corrective action when they came to power, instead of sitting on their hands for eight months.

If there was a true "budgetary emergency", they would not have introduced a new paid parental leave scheme costing $5 Billion!

Tony Abbott is not a Liberal, he belongs elsewhere, perhaps in the DLP or the so-called Family First Party. Yet there he is, leading Australia and the Liberal Party as far as he can go in the wrong direction. The opinion polls have already swung 5% away from the Coalition - and that was before the budget. 

Under Abbott, the chance of social justice for gays is absolute zero - a die-hard policy denying them the right to marry, which he could not even sell to a bunch of schoolchildren.

How long will we have to put up with this inarticulate embarrassing fool?