This is by Dominic Perrottet, Finance Minister in the government of NSW Premier Mike Baird: Abbott’s Legacy Must Live On. I am choosing the same excerpt that was used by Andrew Bolt but you ought to read it all:

Going against the grain isn’t easy. For all that’s written about Tony Abbott’s prime ministership, it must be recognised that he went against the grain for the good of the country. Under the last Labor government, over 50,000 people arrived illegally by boat, costing thousands of lives and billions of dollars. According to the ‘Canberra consensus’, this was simply the ‘new normal’ and nothing could be done….

Abbott went against the grain. He pledged to stop the boats.

Deterrence doesn’t work, thundered the Greens. A pig-headed refusal to accept reality, wrote Michelle Grattan. A policy that risks lives, said Mike Carlton. In the face of this opposition, Abbott delivered. Since the 2013 election, just one boat has arrived. Lives saved, borders secured, order restored.

On climate change, the “consensus” was more of the same. Climate Armageddon was nigh, we were told, so businesses and individuals must cough up billions of dollars.

Abbott took a more measured approach… This in the face of a climate orthodoxy that successfully frightened governments in NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland into spending tens of billions of dollars on desalination plants that, to this day, sit idle while dams fill and flood.

So Abbott again went against the grain and promised to scrap the carbon tax. Too difficult to undo, said Labor. Impractical and disruptive, according to the SMH‘s Peter Hartcher. Reckless and disturbing the status quo, said Michelle Grattan.

In the end, the people agreed with Abbott, and the carbon tax was abolished. So, too, the business-killing mining tax, which just about every talking head in Canberra agreed was a great idea — right before the iron ore price crashed.

It has been said that conservatives are often in government, but rarely in power, in part because many centre-right governments simply accept the status quo, failing to reverse bad policy. Tony Abbott not only opposed bad policy, he actually rolled it back, and he did it decisively and quickly in the face of a hostile Senate and an intransigent Labor Party…

Meanwhile, going against the grain on climate change and boat arrivals earned Abbott the abject hatred of the political Left, as did stripping terrorists of their dual-citizenship, challenging the conformist orthodoxy of the ABC and opting for the will of the people to decide on gay marriage. Despite this, much like John Howard before him, the secret of Abbott’s initial success was simple: he addressed the concerns of the silent majority – not the chattering classes – using Liberal principles.

With a change of leader there will be a temptation to downplay, even do away with, the achievements of the Abbott government. This would be a mistake for several reasons.

Firstly and most importantly, conservative policies are not fantasies – they apply in the real world, and they work. The boats have stopped, the taxes have been axed, free trade agreements signed and the budget on track for repair. The country is the better for all that.

Secondly, any shift to the left would be a betrayal of the Liberal base, which is profoundly and unapologetically conservative. They do not get their talking points from Q&A or The Age. They will have no truck with a government delivering a Labor agenda in Liberal clothing.

Thirdly, Liberal electoral success has always come from the centre-right.

The good that men do is oft interred with their bones. In this case, not yet, but brave to say it all the same. And when you realise the amount of white-anting Tony had to deal with, you get a measure of just how uphill his battles were.

The Leaders’ debates next year will be quite interesting. Here is Labor under the headline, Terror shooting: radical groups ‘prey on teens like pedophiles’:

Bill Shorten has condemned organisations that incite “criminal thinking” in vulnerable young people, comparing them to pedophiles who prey on Australia’s youth.

The Opposition Leader said he had “no time for organisations fermenting dangerous” ideas amid reports the 15-year-old who shot dead a police employee in Sydney on Friday attended the Parramatta Mosque before the murder, including for a service associated with the controversial political group Hizb-ut-Tahrir.

Farhad Khalil ­Mohammad Jabar is believed to have been radicalised through worshippers he met at the mosque where other teenagers are known to have sympathies for the terrorist group Islamic State.

Asked about the reports and if the government needed to take a new approach to this type of violent behaviour, Mr Shorten said: “If there are organisations in this country preying upon vulnerable young people, filling their heads full of murderous crazy nonsense, then those organisations are breaching their social contract with the Australian people.

Here are the New Libs via Greg Sheridan, who obviously has now also received the memo from central command to be nice to Malcolm:

Malcolm Turnbull has passed his first test as a national security leader after the shocking terrorist murder outside the police centre at Sydney’s Parramatta.

The essence of Turnbull’s wisdom here has been balance.

He has said essentially three things. The first, this is a shocking, cold-blooded murder and our thoughts and prayers are with the victim’s family and the NSW Police Service.

Second, this is an act of terrorism.

Third, no one should attrib­ute guilt by association for this terrible act to the Muslim community or to any other Muslims individually. The need for dialogue with the Muslim community is not only to maintain social cohesion but also to help in ­efforts to counter the radicalis­ation of young people. Each ­element of these messages was necessary. To miss any one would have been to unbalance the response.

Turnbull’s response has won appreciation and support from each of the relevant audiences: the public generally, NSW police, security agencies and leaders of Muslim communities.

Turnbull’s government signalled in its earliest days that it was going to change the tone of the rhetoric it used in relation to terrorism.

No one could doubt Tony ­Abbott’s abundant goodwill in this area, but his rhetoric had become a little clunky, the constant repetition of the phrase “the death cult” was off-putting and some Muslim community leaders felt he had been a bit rough with them, in particular
in his remark he wished more Muslim leaders would say Islam was a religion of peace and mean it.

In any event, numbers of otherwise moderate and mainstream Muslim leaders felt alienated and some degree of co-operation had declined.

UPDATE: From Tim Blair. If I didn’t know this was never something to make jokes about, I would assume this was satire of a very dark kind.

Malcolm Turnbull’s more conciliatory approach to the Muslim community doesn’t seem to be working:

The teenage gunman who executed a NSW Police Force employee has been lauded as a “hero of the Islamic people” on a tribute page set up on social media …

A Facebook page has since been established in the North Parramatta teen’s memory, labelling him the “hero of Parramatta”.

“Hero of the Islamic peoples he will be gratly (sic),” one post read.

“Death to the evil police state of Australia who killed this young child all he is guilty of was being muslim!!”

A photo of Farhad’s face with a screen grab of footage captured outside the police HQ of him holding his gun above his head is accompanied by the statement: “Inshallah we will kill all the infidels”.

Another post states: “It is no secret that Australia seeks to destroy islam and there is no choice for followers of allah but to defend themselves.”

I’m not sure, but this might qualify as some of that divisive rhetoric Mark Kenny is always crying about. And check the line from Nick Kaldas:

Asked about the page, NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Nick Kaldas said it was disappointing.

“Just as disappointing as the right-wing extremist material,” he said.

Sure, Nick. Because right-wing extremists always rejoice online when one of them murders a police employee.

Here is a weird one that needs explanation, from The Oz today:

Sydney shooting: Malcolm Turnbull urges calm, condemns attack

This is how the story begins:

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull condemned the “cold-blooded murder” of Curtis Cheng and said it appears to be an act of terrorism.

Mr Cheng was killed outside NSW Police headquarters yesterday by a 15-year-old boy, who was then shot dead by police.

Witnesses say the attacker yelled “Allah, Allah” after the shooting.

“It is a shocking crime. It was a cold-blooded murder, targeting the NSW Police Service,” Mr Turnbull said.

“It was doubly shocking because it was perpetrated by a 15-year-old boy and it underlines the importance of families, communities, leaders being very aware of whether young people are becoming radicalised.

“It is also important that to remember that the Australian Muslim community will be especially appalled and shocked by this.

Well, some may be shocked and appalled, but not necessarily all. This was also in the very same paper under the heading, Extremist Muslim group to hold workshops at Deakin University. This is the story in full:

An extremist Muslim group will hold workshops at Melbourne’s Deakin University this weekend based on the teachings of Islamic scholars who have recommended the death penalty for homosexuals and apostates, promoted terrorism and preached hatred of Jews and Christians and violence against women.

The Islamic Research and Educational Academy, which earlier this year held a conference at which children as young as five were encouraged to dress up as radical clerics and read controversial sermons and passages from the Koran, has sent text messages to supporters advertising the da’wah workshops as being based on the teachings of “legendary” scholars Zakir Naik and Ahmed Deedat.

Dubbed “The Art of Da’wah” and hosted by the ultraconservative Salafist organisation’s president Waseem Razvi, the workshops, to be held at Deakin’s Burwood campus, promise to use the teachings of Dr Naik and Sheik Deedat to help attendees “learn the art and gain the confidence to talk about Islam to anyone, anywhere and at any time”.

In Islamic theology, the purpose of da’wah is to invite Muslims and non-Muslims to understand the worship of Allah.

Indian “televangelist” Dr Naik has been banned from countries including Britain, Canada and parts of India for his rhetorical support for terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

He has recommended capital punishment for homosexuals and apostates and has been quoted saying “every Muslim should be a terrorist” and asserting men’s “rights” to beat their wives, as long as they do it lightly, so as not to leave a mark.

Sheik Deedat, who died in 2005, was a South African Muslim missionary of Indian descent whose books have been banned from sale in France since 1994 for being “violently anti-Western, anti-Semitic and inciting to racial hate.”

His da’wah centre was heavily financed by the bin Laden family and Deedat praised Osama bin Laden after meeting him.

Deakin corporate communications director Sarah Dolan yesterday said there were no clear grounds to cancel the event at the last minute.

“Nevertheless, we will closely watch how the group represent and conduct themselves,” she said.

“As a university we are committed to the fair and open ­exchange of ideas, but we draw the line not just at anyone promoting or justifying violent extremism but also at any malicious expression of exclusivism intended to encourage people to view others in a way that is disrespectful or hateful.”

Chair in Global Islamic Politics at Deakin Greg Barton said he agreed with the university’s decision, but provisos were certainly necessary.

“When it comes to Zakir Naik, there are reasons to be concerned,” Professor Barton said. “The questions around this event will be who is speaking and what line they take.

“In Australia at the moment we face a very serious struggle with ­violent extremist being recruited from our suburbs, and even from our tertiary institutions, and we have to be wise about how we ­engage. If we simply close the doors on everything, that can support the extremists’ rhetoric.

Neither Mr Razvi nor the ­Islamic academy’s spokeswoman returned calls from The Weekend Australian’ yesterday.