In a speech to the party's federal council meeting in Sydney, the Liberal leader, who was courted by the Labor Party, insisted his career in merchant banking and high-tech industry made him the model of a modern Liberal.

"I did not learn about free enterprise in a textbook or a classroom," he said, invoking his Scottish ancestors who arrived in 1802 and established a farm near Hawkesbury. Instead, he and his wife, Lucy, "have lived that spirit of enterprise".

"We have started businesses, created thousands of jobs, developed and exported Australian technology," he said.

"We have taken risks and some of our ventures have not succeeded."

Mr Turnbull has been under pressure from the right wing of his party over his attempts to soften the Coalition's image - including initially backing the Rudd Government's workplace relations laws - and apparent attempts to distance himself from the legacy of the former prime minister John Howard.

Peter Costello, who now embodies the aspirations and grievances of the right wing, did not attend.

Mr Turnbull used his speech to draw a sharp ideological difference from the Labor Party, which he accused of going back to its socialist roots, calling Mr Rudd a "genteel" version of the Latin American leftist leaders Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.

In a recent article for The Monthly, Mr Rudd questioned the morality of unfettered capitalism, saying governments needed to impose regulation on the economy, including executive salaries.

"Mr Rudd has finally nailed his ideological colours to the mast of dominant state power … he wants to discredit three decades of market-based reforms undertaken by both sides of politics."

Mr Turnbull invoked a US Republican president, saying: "… Government is too rarely the solution and more often, as Ronald Reagan famously observed, is the problem."

The Liberals' national fund-raising chief, Michael Yabsley, embraced a more recent icon of US politics - Samuel Wurzelbacher, aka anti-tax campaigner "Joe the Plumber".

"There are Joe the Plumbers out there in Australia," Mr Yabsley said. "We talk about the wealthy panel beater … worth $10 million or $20 million, but we have never been near him."