What does Menzies 2.0 look like in 2022?
No one disputes that conservatism in Australia is in a parlous state – intellectually, culturally, and electorally. It is not only that the Labor-Green-Teal ascendancy faces no compelling electoral alternative, there is no intellectual or cultural counter-offensive on the horizon.
Here is the honest truth; Australian conservatives have lost the capacity to think strategically about their predicament. Their standard response to the Leftist triumph over Australian institutions is similar to the old Trotskyist argument… ‘Economic collapse driven by Net Zero and Woke madness will bring the system down and then, and only then, can we hope to rebuild.’
Trotsky 2.0 is not the way forward, nor is the burst of nostalgia for a long-term monarch as a harbinger of a change in fortunes.
Conservatives in Australia stopped thinking strategically in the 1960s, and have been floundering ever since. If we draw a line under this period of cultural defeat for conservatism – the half-century from 1972 to 2022 – and resolve to go on the offensive, what would that now look like? What organisational shape might it take? What agenda might it coalesce around?
How might Menzies 2.0 bring together ‘fourteen existing political parties and four non-party associations’ in a new movement to rebuild the nation and repair the social fabric?
Communication in Menzies’ time was by postage stamp and overnight rail in sleeper compartments. In the internet age, bringing people together and hosting conventions is easier and cheaper. The Menzies Project can be driven from below, by the many… It doesn’t require a former Prime Minister to host conventions, but it does need strategic vision and political sensibilities reminiscent of Menzies. Those qualities can be learned in an organised movement.
We can bring conservatives together online in an instant. We can assemble ourselves in our federal electorates (there are 150 of these) for open, strategic discussions about how to turn the political tide in the country.
There is currently no regular place where conservatives in the Coalition, minor parties, Independents, or those belonging to no political organisation can meet and discuss turning the political tide, let alone take initiatives to rebuild civil society. Creating this space is urgent. It is the organisational precondition for any conservative counter-offensive.
In Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland, state elections in the coming 12 months provide an opportunity for conservatives to trial a new politics. This is how it would work:
The first target are traditionally ‘safe’ Labor seats or those held by a Teal or Green. Conservatives assembled by federal electorate – let’s call this The Menzies Project – may consider options for turning these electorates. This action might include supporting a conservative Independent or good minor party candidate to win the seat. After all, the Teals have been able to mobilise big numbers to do this successfully in traditionally ‘safe’ Liberal seats – why can’t conservative Independents with broad community support win traditionally ‘safe’ Labor seats?
Dai Le in the New South Wales seat of Fowler shows how this can be done. Fowler was a traditionally ‘safe’ Labor seat, but Dai Le rallied local people to successfully win the seat from Kristina Keneally.
The Left used to say during the Vietnam War, ‘two, three, many Vietnams’. We say ‘two, three, many Dai Les’.
Why should Labor hold seats in Dandenong, Springvale or St Albans, Point Cook, or Craigieburn in Victoria? Why should it hold any seats at all in socially conservative Western and South West Sydney?
Labor only holds these seats because the Liberal Party is culturally unfit to win them. Until now, we’ve had no organisational tools with which to support the election of conservative Independents to win these seats. We need those tools urgently. And we can create them.
Membership of The Menzies Project can be open to: members of the Liberal and National parties, members of minor parties, Independents, and citizens who are not members of any political organisation.
We would need a Charter that binds the project and re-issues Menzies’ speech to The Forgotten People in 1942. Importantly, however, this should not be another restatement of the Culture Wars from the perspective of serving warriors. Our purpose is strategic, not tactical. It is to rebuild the nation and repair the social fabric, and that means putting the Culture Wars behind us. It means thinking strategically about rebuilding civil society and culture, not perennially lobbing hand grenades from one trench to another.
It is a change in strategic mindset from being on the defensive, to being on the offensive.
The Menzies Project is at www.sensiblecentre.org.au/menziesproject/ Vern Hughes is Director of Civil Society Australia and Convenor of The Sensible Centre.
