While every presentation at the CPAC Conference, held in Sydney on Oct. 1 and 2, was worthy of acclaim, there was much focus over a panel session chaired by the executive director of the Menzies Research Centre (MRC), Nick Cater, and included former Liberal National party Senator, Amanda Stoker, former Howard government cabinet minister, Nick Minchin, and Liberal party vice-president, Teena McQueen.
It is unfortunate that this heckling occurred to one of the conservative figures in the party who fought alongside John Howard. Let’s not forget that Minchin was a leading advocate of the “no” case for a republic.
The problem here was not necessarily what Minchin said but what had happened to the Liberal party, which undermined his statement. Under the leadership of Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison, the Liberals have abandoned the conservative values of the party that Minchin outlined—displaying what Nigel Farage described as “conservative cowardice.”
As a result, they have delivered government to the Australian Labor Party (ALP).
Indeed, at the last election, the Liberals preferenced the ALP ahead of the Liberal Democrats and One Nation, minor parties which philosophically are closer to the Liberals. In doing this, the ALP, with the Greens, now have control of the Senate.
Coalition Needs to Actively Draw Voters Back
As Spectator Australia’s Editor-in-Chief Rowan Dean pointed out, conservatives were right to predict that Turnbull would be a disaster, that Morrison was insane to adopt net-zero, and that his response to COVID was wrong-headed both in principle and in practice.These issues need addressing and the best time to do so is obviously in opposition, and the best way to do so is to listen to those critics who are ideological fellow travellers.
Therefore, as Cater noted in his weekly MRC newsletter, “the Coalition cannot assume that the votes it lost to minor parties and independents on the centre-right will automatically come back. The bulk of the 660,000 Coalition votes that disappeared between 2019 and May this year were lost in suburban and regional Australia.”
Cater added: “While the losses to the teal independents proved more costly in terms of seats, the record low Liberal primary vote won’t be reversed unless the party can recover the trust of the not-so-quiet Australians who made their voices heard at the Sydney International Convention Centre.”
All of this begs the question as to what will guide modern Australian conservatism at a time when to be a conservative is to belong to a harassed minority.
Perhaps one of the greatest conservative philosophers of our time, Sir Roger Scruton, summed up why conservatism is considered unattractive:
“Conservatism starts from a sentiment that all mature people can readily share: the sentiment that good things are easily destroyed, but not easily created ... In respect of such things, the work of destruction is quick, easy and exhilarating; the work of creation slow, laborious and dull. That is one of the lessons of the 20th century. It is also one reason why conservatives suffer such a disadvantage when it comes to public opinion. Their position is true but boring, that of their opponents exciting but false.”
Time to Draw Your Weapon
CPAC provided a much-needed rallying cry for conservatives to defend the good things identified by Scruton that have taken centuries to build but that are now being destroyed.The main reason they are being destroyed is complacency, the “she’ll be right, mate” attitude that is so ingrained in the Australian psyche because it has been the “Lucky Country.” It is not so lucky anymore, and time is running out.
We must fight for the rights and freedoms of the individual, and the need for every individual in their own way to be brave enough to stand up to the ever-increasing tyranny of the leftist collective, which hates the family and is using children as young as four to be its ideological foot soldiers against their parents.
As New South Wales MP Mark Latham pointed out, it is no longer good enough for conservatives to resist change. They must actively fight in whatever way they can to re-capture those institutions that have been decimated by the Left.
In other words, conservatives, that is, ordinary everyday people for whom money cannot be printed ad infinitum, for whom there is no climate crisis, and for whom there are only two genders, can no longer afford to be quiet. They must speak up.
Look at what happened in the gubernatorial election in Virginia when ordinary mums and dads found their voices.
The motto of CPAC Australia is “Your voice is your weapon.” Conservatives must find their voice and start fighting.
