A few great one-liners from Tony Abbott’s recent address at the National Press Club. On Rudd:

…he sees bureaucracy as a solution rather than as their main problem…

Like Santa Claus, the prime minister is popular because he has never taken anything away. Sooner or later, though, the accumulated surpluses of the former government will have been spent and the government will lack the capacity to borrow more without raising interest rates. The prime minister would have it that his superior economic management has saved Australia from a recession. Instead of a Rudd recession, he warns us, we will have a Rudd recovery with higher interest rates, business closures, more unemployment and government spending cuts that will make it seem like the recession we supposedly avoided. Everyone who wants the best for our country has to hope that Mr Rudd really is the first world leader to have abolished the booms and busts of the business cycle but it’s hard to avoid the suspicion that his real expertise is in spin rather than economics.

The appearance of the great helmsman at today’s Labor conference again bearing gifts was as dull and as choreographed as a speech to the Chinese Communist Party people’s congress.

And on conservatism:

Conservatism is attentive to ideas but it’s not very ideological. It’s an eclectic, pragmatic creed, above all respectful of the values and institutions that have stood the test of time. To a conservative, truth tends to be provisional, wisdom relative, and success ephemeral. A conservative, as John Howard once quipped, doesn’t think he’s morally superior to his grandfather. In this sense, conservatism is the characteristic approach of a genial, easy-going and successful society.