Since about 2016, the Liberal Party has decided to abandon its statement of principles, ‘We Believe’, which espouses ideals such as freedom of the individual, lower taxes, smaller government, in favour of what one might politely call political expediency, but what really was a deliberate strategy of aping the policies of its opponents in order to ‘keep them out’.

Since politics is a numbers game, let’s have a look at the numbers to determine if this strategy has been successful.

The Liberal Party is now out of government federally and in every mainland state and territory.

Federally, under Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison, the Liberals have lost 30 seats since the 2013 election. Indeed, after the 2022 Federal Election, the Liberals hold only 58 out of 151 seats, which is, proportionately, the lowest number of seats it has held in the House of Representatives since the party was founded in 1944.

The Liberals have all but been obliterated in Western Australia. In Victoria and South Australia, they hold such low numbers of seats that the path back into government may take two terms at least. After the election in New South Wales over the weekend, (at the time of writing), the Coalition may struggle to win many more than 30 seats in the 93 seat lower house.

So trying to be a photocopy of the other side in order to keep Labor out hardly looks like a winning strategy for the Liberal Party. What is that definition of stupidity? Doing the same thing over and over again yet expecting a different result?

Even so, that is what Liberal Party strategists still believe is a winning formula. Michael Photios told Chris Kenny on Sky News Australia’s NSW election coverage that, even though the Liberals had a disastrous result, its ‘moderate’ strategy was the right one because it saved three North Shore seats and the policies the ALP had were what won it the election.

There are none so blind as those that will not see.

The situation on the centre-right of Australian politics looks hopeless. Or does it?

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. 

These words are from Shakespeare’s play Henry V, delivered by King Henry in a speech given on St Crispin’s Day (October 25th) 1415 exhorting his men to greater valour and towards a famous victory at Agincourt against a much larger French army. King Henry urges this small group not to worry and describes them as true Englishmen fighting on behalf of their nation. They were a type of remnant.

The unexpected English victory against the numerically superior French army boosted English morale and prestige, crippled France, and started a new period of English dominance. The Battle of Agincourt, as well as being one of the most important English triumphs in the Hundred Years’ War, is one of England’s most celebrated military victories of all time.

Today, conservatives in Australia could be described as a remnant.

But being a remnant, or part of a remnant, is nothing new. It has happened many times in differing periods of history and we need to learn from those occasions that the world emerged from the darkness.

On those occasions, the remnant was the positive influence.

The West is failing. It needs a creative remnant who are the beating heart of society. It is the remnant that pumps the blood of life to the whole just as salt flavours the whole dish and leaven leavens the whole loaf.

Australia is presently on a different path to the one that ensured its success. This new path has us wandering, like the Israelites after the Exodus from Egypt, in the desert, mindlessly building figurative golden calves to worship in the absence of any political leadership, vision, and no will and determination to pursue them.

However, when you listen to people such as Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Keith Wolahan, Matt Canavan, or Alex Antic, who have conviction in true centre-right principles and aren’t afraid to espouse them, maybe all is not lost. To me, they embody the ideal of the remnant.

They know that, even if it may seem like it is too late, the only sensible thing to do is to act and behave as if it isn’t. It may not guarantee success. But doing nothing guarantees failure. As the IPA’s Daniel Wild wrote in the 2021 edition of Essays for Australia:

History is not and externally deterministic process. It is a product of human agency, and application of free will of those who care the most.

That is why the success of leaders in the United States such as Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, should come as no surprise.

Taking this path is a risk, but the alternative is to do nothing. And that means that, potentially, there will be no bona fide centre-right conservative party in this country in five to ten years.

Like many periods before ours we live in the best of times and the worst of times when the remnant – and these days it is the conservative remnant – is an easy target. But it is vital that conservatives remain steadfast and faithful when it seems all is lost; to act and behave as if all is not lost.

Conservatives can no longer afford to be quiet or forgotten. It is something each of us must take responsibility for, since all of us have an important contribution to make to preserve our way of life.

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Keith Wolahan, Matt Canavan, Alex Antic, and others like them exhibit the spirit and strength of character conservatives need.

They are fighting a good fight. Every conservative, each in his or her own way, as the remnant, must fight the fight with them, for the alternative is unthinkable.

Dr Rocco Loiacono is a legal academic, writer and translator

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