liberal

Robert Menzies didn’t start the Liberal Party to fight for the forgotten people living in harbour mansions. In a speech he made when he was prime minister, John Howard famously described the Liberal Party as a “broad church”, accommodating the political traditions of both classical liberalism and conservatism. Subject to some minor qualifications Howard’s analysis was accurate. But that was

The Bill introduced by Nick Dametto of Katter’s Australian Party’s (KAP) in the Queensland Parliament to reverse Labor’s pointless Reef Regulations (see here), was defeated by a combination of Labor and Liberal-National (LNP) parliamentarians last week. The Reef is in extremely GOOD condition – at record levels by some measures such as coral cover. The levels of farm pesticide concentrations

Recent calls for Scott Morrison to commit to tax reform are well made. But given his and his government’s track record, it might be best to leave the task to someone else. Given how the PM somehow allowed his efforts at ensuring religious freedom to turn into a debate about whether schools can expel students who are gay, it can only be

Whether there’s now much difference between the Liberals and the ALP is a constant topic of conversation among the members of each party. Liberals ask how a $1 trillion of debt and a commitment to net zero emissions is different from anything Labor would do, while ALP members question whether there is any point to a future Labor government if

The problem with running a one-man government is there in the descriptor. All the credit is yours and so is the blame. Scott Morrison won the 2019 federal election for the Coalition single-handedly. Because history doesn’t allow you to test alternatives, we will never know whether he was the only person who could have led the Coalition to victory, but he and

The Labor Party’s review of its federal election debacle was delivered to the party’s national executive on Thursday. Apparently the review has concluded the ALP ran a poor campaign, had too many policies and was led by an unpopular leader. Labor didn’t need six months to work that out – they knew that on the Sunday morning after the election.Since the poll

Is there really a continuing drift away from the major parties in Australian parties? Like many I have in recent years bought into the narrative that we live in an age of political disruption – one reflecting a more general diminishment in the sense of affiliation people have to historic institutions – and that this had led to a flight

How much Australia has changed over the past decade can be seen from the difference between what Kevin Rudd as Labor opposition leader said to get elected in 2007 and what Bill Shorten is saying today in 2019. You can also notice the change by comparing Labor’s and the Coalition’s election policies from this campaign. In 2019 while there’s certainly

The idea that Scott Morrison’s election policies should be decided according to what he thinks is popular in electorates such as Wentworth in Sydney and Kooyong in Melbourne is like Donald Trump running for president by appealing to voters in Manhattan and San Francisco. Yet when it comes to the Coalition’s climate change policies that’s what is happening. It’s not quite as

In calling the election yesterday, Scott Morrison insisted there was a clear choice between the Coali­tion and Labor. Sadly, at their core, there is not as much of a difference between the two governing alternatives as there should be. For example, Labor is committed to a 45 per cent emissions reduction target, while the Coalition’s policy is to reduce emissions