Thanks Raparee.

I'm glad - it may be harder for Labor/ Greens to beat Malcolm Turnbull, but he's a much better international representative for our country. Tony A was dangerously inept on the world stage - he sabotaged the excellent negotiations Julie Bishop did on Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan (drug smugglers in Bali who were executed after Abbott's intervention). On Abbott's first visit to Indonesia the local journalists protested on the street because Abbott held media conferences for Australian journalists only - his boofhead behaviour has been an international embarassment and has caused so much damage. He was never up to the job and its an appalling reflection on the Liberals that he was trusted to lead the party. A puppet of The Institute of Public Affairs, he effectively led our country towards being a police state.

Malcolm Turnbull is considered more moderate, but has agreed to uphold regressive policies on the environment, same sex marriage etc in exchange for being supported by the Nationals, who are in a coalition with the Liberals to form government.

BTW for catters outside Australia, the Liberal Party in Oz is our equivalent of the UK Conservatives or the US Republicans, liberal being individual freedoms, personal responsibility, free market etc.

still exhausted from following developments, now waiting for updates on the new Cabinet,

freda