This open letter assumes the reader has also read the Australian Financial Review column by Alexander Downer dated 4 Dec 2022 found here . Start there and follow with this Open Letter.
27 January 2023
Dear Mr. Downer,
I read your Australian Financial Review column dated 4 December 2022 with great interest.
As a former State and Federal Executive member of the Liberal Party, as a former Young Liberal of the Year and participant in 72 pre-selections, I agree with much of what you wrote.
The fact that the Liberal Party has lost its philosophical mooring and is now drifting wherever the political currents take it was the very reason I left and joined the Liberal Democrats in South Australia.
They stand for fiscal restraint, individual freedom, rule of law, freedom of speech, entrepreneurialism, freedom of worship, free trade, equality before the law, innovation and science, the very things the Liberal Party have abandoned and seem unable to clearly articulate.
As an example of just how unable even Liberal Party senators have become to hold true and firm to these beliefs, see here Senator Andrew Bragg from NSW on ABC’s Q&A:
It’s not only the Liberal Democrats who provide fresh competition. There are good people in other parties who share these values but do not see the Liberal Party as their natural home any longer.
Nowhere was the Liberal Party’s drift more evident than during covid overreach. And it’s with that in mind that I turn to your column.
You wrote, “In South Australia, the public was on the whole supportive of the state government’s termination of traditional civil liberties.”
As you know, public opinion can be manufactured. When you say leadership was required rather than managerialism, nowhere was that needed more than during covid.
You wrote further, “The values of selfless individualism and individual freedom and responsibility are timeless. The Liberal Party shouldn’t allow them to be cast as anachronistic.”
You can see my emphasis in both these quotes.
I’d therefore like to ask you a simple question in an effort to reconcile those two quotes from your column:
Do you agree it was a mistake for the recent SA Liberal Government to have terminated traditional civil liberties at the expense of our timeless value of individual freedom?
This open letter is published on Liberty Itch, which boasts current and past MPs as well as current party leaders and activists as subscribers.
I and my readers await your reply.
Yours respectfully,
Kenelm Tonkin
Editor
Liberty Itch
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An entrepreneur who has employed 1,470+ people, Kenelm was admitted to the BRW Fast 100 three times with businesses in Australia, NZ, Singapore and New York, where he lived for 12 years. Kenelm’s investment firm performs mid-market leveraged roll-ups. He was a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review. Kenelm is the Founder of Liberty Itch.
