If Malcolm Turnbull is remembered for anything, it will be for his supreme act of treachery in bringing down a successful prime minister merely to achieve, illegitimately, the office he has so long lusted after. Apart from relying on Abbott’s performance in the polls – significantly better than Turnbull’s when he was leader − the only other justification offered was that Turnbull believes he communicates better. He is quite an expert on this, having attacked me more than once over my accent. Originally the coup was to follow an anticipated loss in the Canning by-election. But when it seemed likely the seat would be held, the coup was rushed forward. This was done with callous disregard about any collateral damage to the campaign by the Liberal candidate in Canning , former SAS Captain Andrew Hastie. The coup was only successful because the Liberal Party is one of the last major parties in comparable countries to cling to the outdated practice of letting the politicians alone decide the leadership. It’s realised everywhere else that not only is this extremely undemocratic, this is the last thing politicians should decide as many are obviously conflicted in protecting and advancing their personal interests rather than those of the nation.

Tony Abbott’s remarkable parting speech demonstrates precisely why the legitimate PM should have been allowed to face the people at the next election. In it he graciously promised to make the leadership change ‘as easy as I can’. Unlike the plotters, he has never leaked or backgrounded. And he won’t be wrecking, undermining, or sniping− a truly honourable man. The fact is that the illegitimate prime minister has very little to offer. Almost everything he has touched in his political career has been a failure, from his costly and time wasting republican folly, the water buybacks so beloved by merchant bankers, outlawing incandescent light globes, using Godwin Grech’s testimony, his unilateral support for Labor’s ETS, keeping that expensive socialist folly the NBN and his inability or unwillingness to require the ABC to honour its Charter. While committed Labor and Green voters may want him to lead the Liberals without ever voting Liberal themselves, he’s extremely unpopular with committed Liberals. Unlike the applause on Q&A, the Macquarie radio network’s streaming broke down and its switchboard was jammed by angry Liberal voters.

Merit as the principal criterion in Liberal Party preselections is well past its use-by date, claims NSW Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian. She’s calling for targets until 50 per cent of MPs are women. Rank-and-file Liberals are asking whether this is part of a ‘reform package’ distraction to counter the real reforms recommended by John Howard. The NSW barristers’ club also wants solicitors to observe targets about the number of women barristers. Why won’t every hyphenated or acronym based ‘community’ then also demand a target? Will there then be any room left for white, Judeo-Christian, heterosexual males in any profession or indeed parliament? Lawyers’ clients – at least those paying for themselves – are not interested. They just want to win at a reasonable cost.

The ‘community’ du jour is fashionably described with the acronym LGBTI, into which all lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people are conscripted. Most couldn’t care less about the elites’ latest fashion, same-sex marriage. Nevertheless that generously taxpayer-funded foundation, Beyond Blue, has launched an advertising program on what they identify as an increased risk of depression, substance abuse and thoughts of suicide among LGBTI. According to the foundation’s board of eminences chaired by Jeff Kennett, this is because of the absence of same sex marriage. With all the fuss when David Cameron introduced this, you’d have thought the only way the English could have coped with the backlog would have been months of Korean-style mass marriages at Wembley Stadium. In the first quarter only a paltry 500 a month tied the knot.

When Cory Bernardi pointed out that the family of the poor little Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi were not refugees, he was savagely denounced by various look-at-me compassionistas, outbidding one another on how many refugees should come in. Now Zainab Abbas, an asylum seeker on the same vessel, says the boy’s father is a people-smuggler. Curiously, he went back to Syria to bury the boy.

When taking in refugees, the last thing we should do is to emulate prime ministers Fraser’s, Rudd’s and Gillard’s gross incompetence. The country is still suffering from Fraser’s disastrous handling of the immigration portfolio, while 88 per cent of Rudd – Gillard asylum seekers are on welfare. If we’ve learned anything, preference must be given for those most at risk and most likely to assimilate and to contribute, that is the Christians. Meanwhile, approximately 72 per cent of those fleeing to Germany are young able-bodied men who should be fighting for their country’s freedom.

During the Canning by election campaign, Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm called on Western Australia to secede, abstained on asking the Governor-General to sack Dyson Heydon, and directed preferences away from the Liberal candidate. This, he said, was because the Liberals are suing over the name ‘Liberal Democrats’ and Abbott was too conservative. For that we were fortunate. True conservative leaders are rare and achieve much, as Thatcher, Reagan and Howard did. Abbott did not go soft as the US Republican Senate leadership did when they effectively endorsed a treaty they should have blocked. The Iranian mullahs will now be able to use $150 billion in unblocked funds to promote terrorism across the world. They’ll also be able to develop nuclear weapons and ICBMs with the potential to achieve their twin agenda, ‘Death to Israel’ and ‘Death to America’. Leading US conservative author Mark Levin puts it perfectly: ‘Barack Obama makes Neville Chamberlain look like George S. Patton.’ Pray that the next American president, as well as the next legitimate Australian prime minister, is a conservative.