The Liberals are conservative?

Politics in Australia confuses me, I had a go at the ABC compass thingy but didn’t know about most of the issues they raised. Though I did find out what parties I could be voting for and it amused me to see a wikileaks party. The ABC has divided up issues into Social and economical and conservative and liberal. As well as the left and right that I don’t understand.
Apparently left and right refers to where people sat in the French parliament shortly after their revolution. And the more I find out the more meaningless this distinction seems to be. They may as well be the bluer and redder, signifying that there are on opposing ends of some indeterminate spectrum. I’m red with respect to economic growth but blue about family laws.
Wikipedia has a rather informative compilation of the registered parties, also interesting is that it references facebook.I think I like the principals of the wikileaks party best for senate though their candidate is unfortunate. But as for the local member I still don’t know. I dislike the concept of a two-party preferred system bit on the other hand for the last term nothing seems to have been successful, mainly because the balance of power was too even. I think last time nearly everybody voted for who they thought was most likely to lose.
Where do I stand on the scale of blueness?
I think economically the government should never be in debt, on the other hand you have to spend money to make money. I would like to see a reduction in government subsidies, reduction in welfare but an increase in infrastructure spending.
Socially I dislike abortion and gay marriage. The “Aboriginal or Torres strait islander descent” checkbox should be removed from all government forms. Similarly gender equality can be achieved by removing the word gender. Refugees who arrive via boat are cheating, if it were simpler and easier to legitimately emigrate then maybe they would use that method instead. I’ve no issue with the arriving in Australia though.
I was forming of an opinion for other stuff to but I got distracted.
I’d like to think that the leader of each party is a spokesperson or a figurehead. And that behind them is a committee that comes up with sane policies, but if Kevin Rudd is the best spokesman they can find in the Labor party then that doesn’t bode well for the people in the shadows. Incidentally check out John Howard’s new job. Seems like there is more than one organisation seeking world domination if it’s not the Templar Knights or Microsoft then its Democracies.