What makes me sad is how terribly earnest Tony Abbot is. I get the impression that he is doing what he genuinely believes to be right and all the while reality keeps exploding in his face.

In truth he is the only Lib foolhardy enough to take on the leadership role at the moment. Just watch the narcissist Malcolm bathing in the misguided adulation that allows him to believe he may one day be another Fraser.

Tony Abbot embodies the last impotent ideology to attempt to impose itself on Australian democracy. He is a “Good Man” in terms of his ideology — but when was “Goodness” anything other than an ideological value? Really.

What we need is genuine democracy. One that recognises both the supremacy of individual freedom and the reality of our interdependence as human beings.

It’s not that hard, but there is no room for ideology, just a naked commitment to the truth of who we are as humans.