Do you know that vague sense of unease that comes over you when you feel you must have missed something important? People at work are chatting away about some big event and for the life of you, you simply can’t remember it taking place? Did that really happen? Was I out of the country? Am I on the Joe Biden path to ‘being his best self ever’?

These musings came to me when I read last week’s reports of Liberal party senator, and shadow cabinet minister, James Paterson’s speech musing on the best path forward for his party. Now don’t get me wrong.  Much of what Paterson said was just fine.  And let’s be honest, the current Liberal party room is so hollowed out and, well, useless that Senator Paterson is pretty clearly in his caucus’s starting eleven. But here’s the part of the speech that left me with that vague sense of unease. You see Paterson urged the Liberal party to end its ‘apology tour’. Got that? Because for the life of me I don’t recall any apologies of the sort I want to hear. Not a one.

Start with the Covid thuggery of the Team Morrison term. It was a disgrace. The biggest inroads on all of our civil liberties in two or three centuries. Fearmongering on steroids.  Censorship. Police thuggery. I don’t recall Herr Morrison ever managing to voice even a minute criticism of Dan Andrews, the man he and the Coalition government enabled.  Plus there was the blatant, if indirect, vaccine mandates. And the support for school closures that has done untold damage to the young, especially the poor young. And the massive money printing and spending that jet-fuelled asset inflation – and so triggered the biggest transfer of wealth ever from poor to rich and from young to old. Did I miss the heartfelt apologies for all of that, Senator Paterson? I don’t even recall any tricksy, ‘I’m sorry if you feel that way’ sort of half-apologies. Nada. Nothing. Zero. Are we all just supposed to forget that for two and a half years this Liberal party, and those who were in cabinet at the time, sold us all out in the name of a virus that we knew from nearly day one was five or ten thousand times more lethal to the over-seventies than to those under thirty? Look at Sweden’s excess deaths compared to the rest of Europe’s, so like v. like. So yes, I’m still fuming mad about what happened. I’d like to see some real consequences to all those who did this to us. But we all know that won’t happen. A poor second best, though, would be to fire up the old ‘apology tour’ and maybe apologising. Do that and you might actually get back some of your core supporters and lift the Coalition’s first preference tally from its current all-time low.

Senator Paterson’s speech also mentioned the need for the Liberal party to support limited government. But this is the party that appointed our eSafety Commissioner who seems to have no clue about limited government. It’s the party that supported, and supports, all sorts of speech-limiting laws.  (Remember, Senator Paterson came into parliament announcing himself as a free speech proponent, though during all of the cancelling and shadow-banning and massive speech inroads during the lockdown thuggery I don’t recall him saying one word at the time – not one – about these travesties.  Wanna apologise, James?) His recent speech also mentioned the need to propound traditional conservative ideas like lower taxes and less government spending and balanced budgets. Yet it was the Morrison/Frydenberg lockdown excrescence of a government that was the biggest-spending, highest -taxing since Whitlam’s. Do I hear anything that rhymes with ‘lorry’, James? Because as we’ve seen with Britain’s Tories, people stop believing you’ll actually do any of these wish list things you’re mooting when your record when last in government was – you know – not exactly in keeping with the promises. Actions, not words, are what conservatives focus on. And an apology or two might help, again as the UK Tories have learnt. But those Tories waited too long, as I believe Nigel Farage and the Reform party are going to win the next British election. (Readers can remember who called Trump  2.0 to win before most all others and who won bets across the world).

So again, Senator Paterson had some good things to say. He signalled that, yes, the Libs do need to fight the culture wars. He made a few noises about cutting back immigration numbers (as did Angus Taylor) but frankly, this was again an area that former Coalition governments screwed up badly. I flat out don’t trust them on this. The fact they punished Jacinta Price for voicing the clear truth that Australia needs not a small drop in our immigration numbers but rather a massive drop to about 50,000 per year is telling.  No apology tour there either, James. Disparaging Farage and Reform is idiotic, James.  Culture and immigration are far more important than anything else right now and would win the Libs the next election.

Here’s the thing. The Libs and Labor right now are both offering a woeful product. This is why we are seeing all-time low primary vote support for both parties. If Australia had a first-past-the-post voting system I think today’s federal Liberal party would be in much worse shape than it is presently.  Why? Because our preferential voting system, used virtually nowhere else on earth, functions as a protection racket for the two main established parties. It allows the moderates in NSW to ignore clear, needed and promised changes to the party’s constitution so as to entrench their position as cuckoos who have taken over the party nest. Any apologies for that, Mr Paterson?

Look, I know that politicians are never going to apologise for anything they did if that might hurt their careers. It simply ain’t gonna happen. Heck, some are so self-deluded they probably think they did a good job. (That you, Mr Morrison? Mr Dutton? James?)  But given it won’t happen then I, for one, could do without the Patersonian pretence that there has been any sort of meaningful apology tour. He’s too smart for that.

As for some optimism, I think the news that Barnaby Joyce is leaving the National party (which has treated him pretty poorly) is great news. If Joyce joins One Nation he would immediately become the obvious successor to Pauline Hanson. And better still, he could drive up the One Nation vote – I mean this seriously – to 18 or 19 per cent. At that point the National party is in deep doo-doo.  And so would be any Liberal party led by a squishy, soft-lefty Sussan Ley. Or, in fact, by anyone from the New Labor (aka ‘moderate’) wing of the Lib partyroom. Heck, if things played out right we might even see a few Libs desert for a Joyce-led One Nation.  Because right now the Liberal party ship of state is mouthing the patently risible claim the Sussan Ley will be taking them to the next election. And that their halfway-house, damp squibs of policies will see them do well next election. Look at the UK and learn, Libs.

And good luck, Mr Joyce.