My piece for The Age on Prime Minister Tony Abbott and the state of Australian conservatism

I had this opinion piece published in Melbourne's The Age newspaper last week.

I have not blogged or tweeted all that much on Australian domestic politics until the last year. This is mainly because, as an Australian, anything you say about your own country's domestic politics is seen through the prism of our very partisan political culture, when I am someone who despises all forms of hackery and partisanship. It is also because Australian domestic politics has been, for some time now, terribly provincial and dispiriting. One issue I have raised, repetitively, is that we simply do not have the quality of parliamentarian we need at the national level given the challenges Australia faces, especially when one considers that whatever actual parliamentary talent we do have in Canberra is divided, stupidly, by rigid party disciplines that cannot comprehend sensible people working together or, gasp, compromising for the national good. And this is merely the domestic political culture, entirely separate from our media culture of 24/7 news cycles, Twitter and an instant focus on whoever may "lose" from any reform proposal. As I said, it is quite depressing, ever optimistic though I am for Australia.

In this most recent article, I do mention a politics of "prudent, realistic and improving conservatism", a theme I will return to on another day. I have appreciated the feedback from many readers on the right of Australian politics with whom this concept has resonated, and have been quite heartened by it. Unfortunately, again, we have our share of the political class that seems afraid of thinking through what a properly conservative politics would be like and what it would offer and, more importantly, what it would not offer and would, instead, say a firm "No" to, as well as what demands it would make of the citizenry. It is a debate Australian conservatives, and people of goodwill broadly on the right of politics, should have. Not only would it do all of us a power of good, more importantly it would be a service to the Australia we all live in, care for and wish to defend and prosper.

GC