Turnbull warns party faithful against drift to the right
Malcolm Turnbull has stared down the right-wing of his own party which has hamstrung his leadership and asserted that the Liberals should be the party of the "sensible centre".
After passing a compromised version of his big business tax cuts late on Friday, the Prime Minister reset his own position, invoking the philosophy of founder Robert Menzies and telling the party's state council meeting in Melbourne that the Liberals should reject "populism".
"Menzies rejected the populism, the authoritarianism of both left and right. He knew that the future ... was in the sensible centre; was in the politics, not reactionary, but liberal, proudly liberal," Mr Turnbull said.
"Above all, you build from the centre, bringing people together, and that is our commitment."
His call came a week after a Fairfax-Ipsos poll showed the Coalition continues to trail Labor federally in opinion polls, by 55 per cent to 45 per cent.
Mr Turnbull said that "right at the heart" of the Liberal Party's project "lies enterprise, business men and [business] women above all, small businesses, because they're the most enterprising, the most ready to invest, the most ready to innovate".
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/turnbull-warns-party-faith...