Liberal Party owes Tony Abbott an enormous debt, Malcolm Turnbull tells NSW

In a statement, Turnbull’s spokesman said all communications relating to government business, with exemptions, were potentially subject to freedom of information laws, regardless of where they were stored.

While he was a minister, Mr Turnbull said he used the Wickr messaging app for its security features.

He said the party is a broad church, with members from a wide variety of backgrounds.

But he said historically, Water had sat in the Agriculture portfolio, going back to his time performing the role from 1999 to 2005 in the Howard government.

Plunging commodity prices are exacerbating the pressure on revenues and making Turnbull’s task of reining in a budget deficit forecast to reach A$35.1 billion ($25.2 billion) in the 2015-16 fiscal year more hard.

He said Mr Abbott “was not capable of providing the economic leadership we need”. The Prime Minister, while addressing a press conference, urged Australians not to go down the path of extremism.

There were a few more of Turnbull’s recent catchphrases thrown in for the fans: we were told that “those seeking to preserve social harmony have to be very agile”, “this is the most exciting time to be Australian”, and that “Australia, my friends, has the greatest future ahead of it” …

Premier Mike Baird was also warmly received with cheers from the audience when he praised Mr Abbott in the opening of his speech.

Mr Baird noted that the dumping of Mr Abbott was “still very raw”.

Mr Turnbull delivered his strongest assessment yet of why Mr Cheng was shot dead outside the Parramatta police headquarters.

His comments follow those made by Employment Minister Michaelia Cash, who told the ABC last month that there was no recommendation to remove penalty rates “at the moment”. To his credit, Turnbull is prepared to talk in public about these trade-offs between groups, even if it’s in the context of the apparently inevitable transition to a “more flexible workplace”.

When IDM queried Australian government ministers in March, then Defence Minister Kevin Andrews and Finance Minister Senator Mathias Cormann were up front in declaring they did not use personal email for government business.

It can also be revealed that Mr Abbott repeatedly asked police in private briefings in April about how thye were gatherin evidence about criminal networks and were not arresting the drug dealers who had been “caught” on phone taps.

Others thought Mr Abbott was just trying to understand the process.