Last week’s Canberra Midwinter Ball at which our politicians let their hair down as they wined and dined the night away was even more depressing to observe from the outside than is usually the case. Part of the fun, of course, of the classic Ball is seeing those individuals who are so antagonistic and aggressive towards each other on the floor of parliament forced to smile politely through clenched teeth as they brush past each other heading for the dance floor.

Sadly, those days are long gone. However one might describe the 48th parliament of Australia, it is hardly antagonistic. Indeed, apart from a few silly verbal skirmishes there is nothing of an ideological nature that genuinely separates the two main groups, the Labor/Teals/Green government and the Coalition opposition. Indeed, ‘opposition’ is being way too generous when it comes to describing the motley set of priorities that propel the agenda of the current federal Coalition.

Not for nothing is the term ‘uni-party’ used to describe these two increasingly indistinguishable political forces. Indeed, for policies that are genuinely in conservative contrast to the government’s, it is increasingly necessary to look to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation

In this week’s magazine, Matthew Kelly describes in detail the excruciating history of how the Liberals have ceded territory to Labor on all fronts, foolishly seeking to minimise, rather than to magnify, differences with the Labor party and, of course, with the Teals.

As Matthew writes, ‘The centre is no longer neutral ground – it has become enemy territory. What once counted as uncontroversially moderate – aspiration, thrift, family stability, national pride – is now coded as extremist. Labor hasn’t moved rightward to capture the centre; the centre has moved leftward to meet Labor, and the Liberals have stumbled along behind like confused tourists.’

Take immigration. As was blatantly apparent last weekend when thousands of Australians marched peacefully in our major cities bearing Australian flags – in stark contrast to the endless display over the last two years of Palestinian and Hamas banners – mainstream Aussies are fed up with the excessive influx of migrants uninterested in any kind of assimilation now flooding onto our shores, onto our streets, into our shops and into our thoroughly inadequate housing supply. Yet to all intents and purposes the Coalition has little interest in seriously opposing this massive increase in population. The best former leader Peter Dutton could manage was a measly 25-per-cent reduction, when clearly what is needed is a moratorium on migration for at least a year or two while the country more comfortably absorbs those who have already arrived.

Take free speech. This nation is hurtling down the same path as the United Kingdom – towards unacceptable government controls, restrictions and censorship of online activity. Yet rather than learn from the appalling examples set by the British, the Coalition not only supports the government’s eSafety Commissioner, they were actually the ones to initially employ her. This week, comedy scriptwriter Graham Linehan (author of Father Ted and The IT Crowd) arrived at Heathrow only to be arrested by five police officers, supposedly for ‘suspicion of inciting violence’ courtesy of three silly tweets. Is this the sort of nonsensical authoritarian overreach that Australians can look forward to thanks to a lack of a serious conservative opposition in this country?

And then there is the festering, pustulous sore known as net zero. The mocking and arrogant swagger of Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen in parliament this week, in which he satirised the idea of net zero being a ‘socialist’ enterprise, owes far more to the lack of any credible opposition than to Mr Bowen’s self-imagined wit and theatrical flair. There is simply no escaping the fact that – being a long-term economic plan built not on free market principles but rather on government coercion, subsidies and collectivist left-wing ideology – net zero is modern socialism, as Senator Matt Canavan (who writes brilliantly in this week’s magazine) insists. Every scintilla of the net zero agenda is the opposite of Menzian conservatism or liberalism. The only credible conclusion the casual observer could reach is that corrupting influences, financial or otherwise, within the Coalition now override common sense and values.

The left and the right sides of politics came together at the Midwinter Ball last week, maybe even on the dance floor. But this was nothing out of the ordinary. To the detriment of our nation, the two main parties are in lockstep on the floor of parliament far too often. This has to change.