As former Senator David Leyonhjelm adroitly explained in his recent article Libertarians And Conservatives: Similar But Different, there are both shared interests and fundamental differences between libertarians (or classical liberals) and conservatives.

For decades, the Liberal Party sought to balance these tensions, referring to itself internally as a “broad church”. As a libertarian who was once a Young Liberal and enthusiastically involved in the Liberal Party at all levels, I took pride in feeling that (while often at the margins) there was a place for libertarian ideas alongside conservative ones.

So why is it that party members from both sides of the Liberal Party’s twin political heritage are looking at it with increasing dismay,
and abandoning it in greater numbers than ever before?

Over the past month I have heard two descriptions of the Liberal Party that were remarkably similar, from people who had not had an opportunity to compare notes.

Libertarian Party MLC John Ruddick described the modern Liberal Party as “a once great manor house, that still looks good from the outside, but has fallen into disrepair, with the carpets and curtains decaying inside”.

Less than a day later, twenty-year Liberal Party member and now a Libertarian Party member, Gideon Rozner said, “The Liberal Party today… it’s like when you go to a tennis or sports club, and the club rooms are a mess and the facilities in disrepair”.

Simply put, the Party is rapidly ceasing to exist as an entity made up of grassroots members that exist outside of parliaments.

The Moira Deeming saga epitomises the identity crisis the parliamentary Liberal Party faces.

Having lost the compass points of both libertarian and conservative values,
the modern Liberal leadership finds itself adrift in a sea of woke intersectional tides.

Pesutto, like the dying days of the Napthine government in 2014, is desperately trying to appease a vocal section of the electorate which will never vote for him no matter how much he virtue signals to win their favour.

In 2014, Denis Napthine led the Victorian Liberal Party into what was meant to be an unlosable re-election for a second term after 14 years in opposition following the defeat of Jeff Kennet in 1996.

His campaign slogan was ‘Jobs and growth’. Victorian voters were faced with a choice between Pepsi or Pepsi-Max, and perhaps unsurprisingly they chose Pepsi.

By turning a disagreement between himself and a first term backbencher into an existential challenge to his leadership, Pesutto has made it clear that the modern Liberal Party is not in the business of ideas.

Party members, libertarians and conservatives alike, rightly see Moira Deeming’s exile as a proxy for the treatment they could expect if they expressed the wrong kind of ideas, or any at all. 

As a libertarian in the Liberal Party, I used to rationalise my continued participation as “helping to make the party better” and “changing from within”. Looking back on that time honestly, I wanted to have good ideas, but wasn’t prepared to sacrifice political power or a future political career to defend them.

Several first term MLCs who were in my graduating class of Young Liberal aspiring politicians voted to expel Moira Deeming, likely not because they thought it was right but because they felt dissent would have killed their political future.

In the current state of the Liberal Party in Victoria, they were probably correct, and the lesson for grassroots members should be to seek political homes that welcome their ideas, rather than silence them. 

A secondary lesson for those outside of major party politics, is that while there is much to be gained from co-operation between those with different ideas but shared interests, there is just as much to lose by believing in nothing except winning elections.

Jordan Dittloff

Jordan Dittloff is a former Young Liberal, former small business owner, and former prisoner, who joined the Libertarian Party (then the Liberal Democrats) in 2017. Since then, Jordan has charted a path of legal, social and moral rehabilitation, completing a Business Degree and a postgraduate Juris Doctor along the way.

Tomorrow, New South Wales voters will choose their next government.

The winner will be the Liberal-National incumbent or the Labor insurgent.

At this point, no other party is strong enough to usurp either. They are the only options to form government.

The Liberal-National Coalition has been in power since 2011. In 12 years, they have had Premiers Barry O’Farrell, Mike Baird, Gladys Berejiklian and Dominic Perrottet. The second resigned at the top of his game and is now a middle-level manager of a bank. The first and third resigned under an ICAC cloud.

Under it’s leadership, transport services have improved dramatically. Hospitals have been adequate. School results have slowly diminished. It’s handling of covid was relatively light-touch at first, but Gladys Berekijlian requested that troops be deployed in Western Sydney to enforce covid restrictions and the Ruby Princess matter was a debacle, her government accommodated the slide towards the illiberal in education, much needed land releases were held back to keep real estate prices high, and much talent vacated the capital, Sydney.

Further, the Perrottet Government has veered dangerously towards a green tape business culture. In the dying days of this campaign, the Premier has flip-flopped on whether to keep Eraring Power Station. Debt has skyrocketed. It will take generations to repay the damage. Over the years, the clear stars have been Mike Baird and Andrew Constance, both now gone, as well as Victor Dominello who is still there.

The Labor Opposition has distance from the Eddie Obeid days. Chris Minns is a relatively unknown as Opposition Leader. He is certainly economically illiterate, not being even able to articulate a fully-funded first year budget. However, he performed the bells and baubles hustings game well in a presidential-style campaign before a friendly media. He had to do that because his shadow cabinet is obscure and without experience. On last count, there is not one MP in opposition with employing small business experience. On policies, they will certainly ramp-up the debt. But that is a bi-partisan policy.

I am ill-at-ease for my New South Welsh cousins.

They really have a tweedledum and tweedledee choice before them in terms of who forms government.

If I were a betting man, and on politics I am not because for me democracy is not a devalued commodity of a crap shoot or two-up round, I would suggest to the readers of Liberty Itch that both options represent higher taxes and lower personal freedom. I could recommend neither to you, and I am a former Young Liberal of the Year and State Executive member of the NSW Division of the Liberal Party in the 1990s.

No-one can predict the future and my track record is woeful, though I was correct with my Stunning Early Victoria Election Prediction.

However, at 6:54pm ACDT on 24 March 2023, I make three election predictions as follows:

Prediction #1: Labor will win!

Prediction #2: Labor will form majority government.

Prediction #3: Liberal will win the Legislative Assembly seat of Hornsby.

To be clear. I do not wish these results. I do predict them.

This will mean the Liberal-National Coalition will form no government on mainland Australia.

It will also mean that the Liberal-National Coalition will likely continue its current trend to electoral oblivion.

The support base for the Coalition is cleavered on the issue of climate change. It is an issue which has been fraught for many Liberal leaders for a decade. It is the equivalent of the DLP split from Labor in the 1950s which kept them out of power for twenty years.

What is for certain, NSW needs a government which keeps away from our bank accounts and out of our private lives.

It will be some time before that is a reality for the good folk of New South Wales.

Kenelm Tonkin

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.

Here’s the quick political segmentation for you to ponder.

The Australian political landscape has two overarching groups: the Extremists and the Democrats.

We must actively counter the Extremists in the public square regardless of their form or stripe. No exceptions. No nuancing or qualifying. Their idealogies are all abhorrent. This includes five sub-groups: the Communists and Socialists, the Fascists and Ethno-Nationalists, and the Militant Jihadists as well.

We don’t weaken our democracy by banning them.

No! As Democrats, we must do the hard yards engaging and countering them.

We expose their dire histories, their graphic, heinous results, their intolerance, ulterior motives and their totalitarian DNA. We reveal and mock, we eviscerate and make them look odd and utterly untempting.

We built alliances among the Democrats in this regard, we unite with them against the Extremists and focus our message towards the disenfranchised, marginalised and dispossessed so they don’t drift to the Extremists.

As and once we win, we turn next to our fellow Democrats. With our democratic fellow-travellers, we reason and convert.

Now, inside the Democrats, there are two sub-groups both with long and proud traditions. They are the Democratic Left and the Democratic Right. As the names suggest, both are democratic but of different flavours. Both are ice cream, just one is strawberry and the other chocolate. Here the flavours are more government and more freedom.

We start with our great democratic opponent, the Democratic Left. This group comprises the Social Democrats with their penchant for the welfare state in the name of compassion. They are fairly united right now, sitting inside the Australian Labour Party, the Australian Greens and Animal Justice and representing a cohesive, fighting force. If we do not impune their motives but show them the results of their policies, we might have a chance. Far more effective is that we promote policies which contrast, wedge and split them. AUKUS is emerging as a wedge issue for the Democratic Left.

History suggests it will be hard to convince them. And if that be the case, so be it.

Next, we must strengthen the Democratic Right for future battles.

So what do we discover?

Well, the Democratic Right are highly fragmented at the moment. In fact, there are 8 segments, all fairly distinct sub-sub-groups if you look hard enough but with some smudging at the edges which reveals affliation across some of the grouping and that people migrate between them.

Here are the 8 segments:

1. The Moderates
   We’re talking here about people who self-describe as small-l philosophical liberal or modern liberal. Moderates see themselves as fiscally responsible and socially liberal. Since 2007, if loyal party members, this segment hasn’t noticed they are frogs in the slow-boiling saucepan fiscally. If new to party politics, the ranks of the Moderates now include people who have a tendency to be big government spenders rather than economically lean, and that expenditure has often been on social projects they wouldn’t have chased in the Howard years. We are talking about Liberal Party members and Teals.
2. The Libertarians
   This group, most likely you as a reader of Liberty Itch, sometimes self-describe as classical liberal or liberal. Like the Moderates, they see themselves as fiscally responsible and socially liberal. Unlike the Moderates, the Libertarians are philosophically-driven and so their policy prescriptions are consistent and predictable. And they are very dry fiscally, to the point of reducing the size of government. This sometimes results in a doctrinaire approach and an obsession for philosophical purity tests. We are talking members of the Liberal Democrats.
3. The Disaffected
   These people are probably ex Liberal Party supporters, probably slow to leave, currently political refugees, probably moderate, probably white collar, and looking for a new party which expresses their values. They are confused and disoriented. They are upset. They feel the political rug has been pulled from under their feet.
4. The Populists
   Here, we’re talking probably about former Liberal Party members who self-describe as conservative but, on closer scrutiny, their views taken in total show a mixed or inconsistent framework. This inconsistency can sometimes cause them to err into dangerous territory and be drawn to a charismatic leader. They are mostly blue collar, and have already migrated to One Nation and the United Australia Party.
5. The Conspiracy Theorists
   This segment doesn’t know which political party they belong to, are skeptical of authority, and yearn to make sense of the world. They frequently latch onto theories about globalists and global bodies but, with emerging critical reasoning skills only and craving certainty in an uncertain world, cannot discern between fact and fiction. You can find these people in any of the parties but they are particularly concentrated in Australia One and the sovereign citizen movement.
6. The Agrarians
   This segment lives in rural areas or regional towns with a strong agricultural influence. They are conservative, but fiscally slip into protectionist economics and bigger spending rural services. They are in the National Party, Liberal Party and the Shooters Fishers and Farmers.
7. The ConservativesAs I’ve documented, conservatives love to conserve whatever the status quo of the day. Since resistance to change is their modus operandi, the work tirelessly to halt or slow undesirable change. However, Conservatives rarely come up with new policy themselves and what they do come up with can be anti-freedom. Think bans, quick-to-judge court proceedings and higher taxes to fund conservative causes. This puts them on the back-foot constantly for lack of policy flair. You’ll find conservatives and self-described conservatives everywhere.
8. The Christian Right
   This segment has no monopoly over right-wing Christians. The difference between the Christian Right and all other Democratic Right segments is that it is exclusively Christian and it seeks to assert Biblical authority into the state as a kind of theocracy of one potency or another. The other segments mentioned will assume a plural, secular, liberal democracy. The Christian Right is usually evangelical or orthodox, usually Pentecostal, always family-oriented. You will find members in Family First and the Australian Family Party.

The challenge for the Democratic Right is to bind these 8 segments to form a Centre-Right Coalition, win against the Democractic Left and put the Extremists out of business.

Kenelm Tonkin

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.

Just when you shudder at the Treasurer’s blueprint for ‘redesigning capitalism’ and the limp response from the Coalition we have come to expect, along comes Senator Ralph Babet (UAP, Vic).

Classical liberals everywhere, take heart. There is hope that, finally, we have an advocate for our principles, and one uncaptured by the Coalition.

Straight from the Senate floor on 8 February 2023, in a speech titled Government Intervention Makes Things Worse …

Anyone with a basic understanding of economics knows that
handing-out large sums of money will destablise and manipulate the market.

Common sense, right?

Then, warming to the opportunity to let them have it, without a care how the parliamentary-careerists might react, he openly chastises the Liberal Party and National Party who took us down the wrong path …

“Never again can our country run-up such an irresponsible amount of debt
like the former Government did.”

Just in case that didn’t sit you upright and start cheering, these gems then flowed-freely in a kind of declaration of intent …

“Less stimulus. Lower taxes. If government removes financial barriers,
the market will naturally provide adequate supply
at a price acceptable to consumers.”

Well, bravo Senator. Bravo!

Now in full flight and infusing the red chamber with his particular brand of optimism, long-missed plain-speaking and unequivocal classical liberal rhetoric …

“For too long, the focus has been on government
incentivising the demand-side of the equation with taxpayer money.
It’s time to focus on the supply-side.”

If he keeps this up, the Senator will be mercilessly attacked.

That, of course, will be the sign he is threatening the cosy status-quo.

As Ralph Babet emerges as a first-time senator, it will be interesting to witness how he handles his philosophical opponents.

However, one thing is clear. Do not underestimate the good Senator from Victoria.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/7uHSl1Sglag?start=29s&rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

Kenelm Tonkin

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.

1. The evidence is crystal clear: the Earth is flat
2. The evidence is crystal clear: lead pipes and drinking water go together
3. The evidence is crystal clear: there are canals on Mars
4. The evidence is crystal clear: thalidomide is perfectly safe
5. The evidence is crystal clear: Elvis Presley’s death was faked
6. The evidence is crystal clear: alien UFOs regularly fly in our skies
7. The evidence is crystal clear: Theranos blood testing was scientifically proven
8. The evidence is crystal clear: CCP Uyghur camps are really Club Med resorts
9. The evidence is crystal clear: if you take the covid vaccine, you won’t get covid
   and …

Kenelm Tonkin

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.

The First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, has given notice of her resignation.

Foremost among her political objectives and that of her party, the Scottish National Party, was to gain independence from the United Kingdom!

Scotland and England have been in Union since 1707, by personal union of the Crown as far back as 1603. So aspiration was high, clear-headed thinkers might say unrealistically so, for a population the size of Sydney or Boston.

Her predecessor, Alex Salmond, won handsomely in the 2011 election, a result sufficient to pressure Westminster for a referendum on independence in 2014.

The YES Campaign of that referendum was led by Ms. Sturgeon and resulted in a majority of Scottish residents rejecting a breakaway from the United Kingdom.

Damaged by the implications of that result, it was Mr. Salmond who ended his decade-long leadership of the Scottish National Party and the lacklustre performer, Ms. Sturgeon, was elevated to the top job.

This past performance should have been the harbinger of her subsequent eight year premiership.

Her failure to replicate Mr. Salmond’s 2011 result meant securing a second referendum was always going to be fraught. It didn’t help that her predecessor left the Scottish National Party to lead another pro-independence party, Alba, in 2021.

Now in coalition with the Scottish Greens, she had the Scottish Parliament declare a referendum date after political maneuverings and repeated petitions to Westminster failed. The brazen, ultra vires move was struck down by the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court as recently as November 2022 and Ms. Sturgeon was grasping for want of a workable strategy thereafter.

In pursuit of her pet project to regress to a Middle Ages scale state,
much was neglected in Scotland.

When she inherited the role of First Minister in 2014, educational performance was second to none in all Europe. Today, Scottish educational authorities have long-ago ceased participating in most international standards, and the one they still do clearly shows a regression in STEM performance compared with England.

The Scottish Enlightenment of Robert Burns, David Hume and Adam Smith, all achieved within the United Kingdom, seems a proud historical footnote for a country now in decay.

Signs of the malaise are everywhere under Ms. Sturgeon.

Stagnant company formations in a land known for its astute business people and rampant job losses are another two glaring markers of failure. The prolonged, nationwide covid-lockdowns only reinforced the government-is-the-solution errors.

What we can say about Ms. Sturgeon is that she had a vision for Scotland as an independent nation. Achieving that was always going to be remarkable. It is not surprising she has lost her political energy. In this, at least, one can understand her plight in contrast with recently resigned New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, who coupled an expressive froth and bubble veneer with authoritarian tendencies.

In the end though, like many who believe in the collective power of government, Ms. Sturgeon’s fitful dream turned into an everyday, dreary reality of decline.

Maybe soon, Scotland can start the journey back to its former glory. The secret to achieving that is for its government to step out of the way!

Kenelm Tonkin

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.