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Many moons ago a farming couple of Irish extraction living just west of Sydney had a son named John. He had the traditional depression-era barefoot to school type upbringing, showed a few clues and, after serving in the army in World War Two, he became a chemist. Something of a restless soul, he plied his trade around the place for a bit before heading to Samoa to run a hospital dispensary for a while. This was pre-Fairstar o'course. On return to Australia he chucked in chemisting and became a builder's labourer (a job that you don't see advertised much anymore). At this stage he also started writing. He wrote about being a builder's labourer, about being a chemist in Samoa, about life in the doghouse when your missus gives you the heave-ho, about a stray cat that he found, about opal mining, professional fishing, all sorts of things.
Not likely to appear on any list of great world literature, his books were nevertheless very enjoyable, humorous and usually capable of engaging the reader. His first two books were written under the psuedonym of Nino Culotta, and were presented as the experiences of an Italian immigrant in the fifties.
In the second book, calles 'Cop This Lot', Culotta goes back to Italy to visit his family and takes a couple of Australian friends with him. One of his friends is talking to Signor Guareschi, who is a friend of Culotta senior and also a communist. They are talking about Culotta senior, who is the village patriarch. When asked how he can be friends with such a man, Guareschi replies "Is bad system. Is many a good man, but is bad system."
I tend to feel the same way. I am not any more likely to be friends with anybody because they share the same interests or beliefs that I do. In fact such people tend to shit me off because they are likely to pretend to agree with me even when they don't, just to maintain the appearance of unity.
Which is a particularly long-winded way of saying that I like Tony Abbott. OK, so he's an idealogically driven conservative, which is scary, at least as scary as an idealogically driven liberal. I prefer to be a pragmatic 'whatever works in this situation' type of person. OK, so he's a Catholic, who expresses no doubts about the primitive superstitions and bizarre rituals. But he's got class.