For almost 130 years Australian Liberals have prided themselves on their ability to exercise their civic duty to speak and reason with one another, freely and according to their conscience. That is one of the central messages of Dr Zachary Gorman’s new book on Australia’s sixth prime minister Joseph Cook, published as part of Connor Court’s Australian Biographical Monographs series.

When I gave my maiden speech in February, I cited Cook as a classic example of those, like myself and Warren Mundine, who, although we were born and bred to submit to Labor ‘communal’ values, came to appreciate the fundamental importance of freedom. It is therefore very heartening to read a new and engaging book that tells the story of a man whom Liberals should know more about. Indeed, Cook was the first Liberal to win a federal election outright, and he is one of the main reasons why liberalism is associated with the centre-right of politics in this country.

Born in a working-class English town in 1860, Cook began working in a coalmine at just nine years old and became his family’s primary breadwinner at twelve when his father was tragically killed in a mining accident. It goes without saying that this was an almost unimaginable burden for a child to face.

However, as Gorman skilfully relates, Cook was not burdened with our modern victimhood mentality. He was strengthened by a culture of empowerment in which people were told they could and should strive to overcome life’s inexplicable and unfair tragedies, that inside every person is immeasurable capacity to accomplish great things and gain great joy. Cook not only bravely rose to face the responsibility of becoming the head of his household, providing for his mother and helping to raise his siblings, but would go on to forge such great achievements that even the poshest private schoolboy could only dream of.

Having raised one family in harsh English poverty Cook, like so many others, migrated to Australia in the hope of providing a better life for his own children. As a miner in Lithgow, he quickly rose to be a leading figure in the town and president of the local trade union.

When the Labor party first emerged in 1891, Cook put up his hand to be a candidate, and he was duly elected to the New South Wales parliament. In its first couple of years Labor did not have a parliamentary leader, preferring to rule by committee. By the time they did elect one, Cook had so impressed his colleagues that he was voted in as the first leader of the NSW Labor party.

However, not long afterwards Labor’s extra-parliamentary organisation began to exert direct control over the votes of Labor’s ‘democratically elected MPs’–instituting a ‘pledge’ to vote only as their caucus dictated. Knowing the importance of individual conscience, and having spent his life painstakingly climbing up the political ladder so that he could advocate for what he thought was right, Cook found this abhorrent. He declared that he would ‘refuse to be a slave’, resigned from the Labor party, and became one of Australia’s strongest champions of freedom and opportunity.

All modern Liberal leaders should know that freedom of speech and freedom of association are central liberal values, and that these principles prove themselves more, not less, politically valuable when controversial subjects arise. It is illiberal as well as un-Liberal to water down these principles. We must not be afraid to stand up for our political values. I believe that when people hear true conviction from the mouths of our Liberal politicians, they will follow us – because we will have earned their trust by speaking the truth fearlessly. In the context of the debate over the Voice it is also worth noting that Liberals have long opposed outside forces interfering with the healthy working of parliament, be they the ‘faceless men’ of caucus that Robert Menzies also condemned, or any other organisation.

Gorman argues that Cook, entering federal parliament in 1901 as a member of George Reid’s Liberal Free Traders, became such a staunch defender of Australia’s political and economic freedoms because his own life proved that Australia was a land of tremendous social mobility. Moved by compassion and hard-earned wisdom, he refused to allow the agency and dignity of freedom and opportunity to be taken from others.

When Labor began to openly advocate socialism in 1905, Cook insisted that a revolution would do more harm than good. This sense of perspective about the value of preserving things that are successful –even if not perfect – is something modern progressives lack, because these days they are so often born into privilege, and assume that prosperity is inevitable.

When the Free Traders and the Protectionists merged into a united Liberal party in 1909, Cook became deputy prime minister under Alfred Deakin, who was then smashed at the 1910 election. Cook patiently picked up the pieces, stuck to his principles and led the Liberal party to its first election victory in 1913. Sadly, Cook has largely been forgotten because he went to a double dissolution election in 1914, which was interrupted by the outbreak of the first world war, and lost office.

But as Gorman shows, Cook’s story and his values provide important lessons for the present. As the member for Western Metropolitan Region, I know that my constituents who are immigrants carry their own tales of hope and hard work, and would resonate with Cook’s story. Such stories and values are timeless, and thankfully, they are Liberal. Like Cook before us, modern Liberals must work relentlessly and with conviction to ensure that Australia lives up to its reputation as the ‘lucky country’; not because we leave things to luck, but because enjoying political and economic freedom is all too rare in this world.

Just as importantly, we must follow Cook’s example of holding steadfast to our Liberal principles. We must not allow ourselves to be intimidated or dictated to by the collective. Groupthink is not thinking at all, and if our side of politics is not allowed to express original or controversial ideas, we are no better than our caucus-bound opponents, and the Australians we claim to serve, will suffer the consequences.