For years I’ve been outspokenly optimistic about Australia, but more recently I’ve changed…

I look with concern at exponential government debt, surging inflation, weak GDP, global tensions, partisan media, Critical Race Theory (whatever that is), assaults on free speech, harassment of minority views, the looming energy crunch, and the head of the hydra ‘global warming alarmism’.

And how could I leave out lockdowns in pursuit of zero-Covid that were reinforced by state-sponsored vaccine extremism?

I ain’t feeling like we’re heading for sunlight uplands…

We could become doomsday preppers; buy remote land, get off the grid, sit on the porch, and watch the world speed down its highway to hell.

Or we could give everything we’ve got to turn it around.

Maybe we’ll end up in gulags if we try, but our efforts might just prevent everyone from suffering in one.

The Liberal Democrats are Australia’s finest political party, but we’re sitting at 2 per cent. Our Senate candidates included a former Premier, a respected MP, and others with lesser profiles. Despite this, we had very similar results in the last election.

One in 50 voted for us, but only one in ten know we exist. That ratio is promising. Theoretically, if we boost awareness we also boost our vote.

Our party has been forced to ask itself, are we libertarian philosophers who dabble in politics or are we a libertarian party that seeks clout in Parliament?

New Zealand’s libertarian party is the ACT Party. In 2020, they went from having one MP to ten, winning 7.5 per cent of the vote. Polls today say the ACT is 11 per cent and on track to be in a coalition government.

With 10 per cent, the Liberal Democrats could be a voice for sanity.

ACT leader David Seymour recently said, ‘ACT has always been the party for the thinking voter.’ ACT campaigns smart and bold at elections. The Liberal Democrats must too. We need to take the gloves off and offer an unapologetically bold libertarian vision.

Climate theology is ubiquitous. Recently, I watched an SBS documentary on the latest thinking as to why Ancient Rome fell. At university, I learnt there were over 200 theories as to why, but SBS informed me the latest research says the culprit was climate change and a pandemic!

Libertarian voters are ideologically somewhere between Bjørn Lomborg and Ian Plimer on the issue of global warming. In the Liberal Democrats we are all, to varying degrees, sceptical of the orthodoxy and so we’ve previously campaigned on two points: we support all energy sources and we want government out of the way.

Good. But around the world right now those jurisdictions which have most embraced the much-vaunted renewable revolution are heading for an energy crunch. German citizens, without permission, are chopping down forests to heat their homes. In Poland, people are lining up for hours to buy a bucket of coal.

Oh, it’s all Putin’s fault! Hang on … didn’t Russia sell them fossil fuels? What happened to the renewable energy revolution which for 30 years we’ve been assured will be cheaper and more reliable? California recently announced mandatory electric vehicles, but the next day citizens were told not to charge their EVs because electricity was running low.

After all this failure, Australia is still rushing to be the next California. In the past year, coal provided 75 per cent of this state’s electricity. Our dear Lib-Lab leaders have committed to closing 46 per cent of this capacity in the next three years!

The Liberal Democrats, as a party, need to state the obvious: we require a thriving coal industry until we are absolutely guaranteed non-fossil fuels (including nuclear) can replace it. Silence condones Australia’s self-harm.

Hopefully renewables can one day replace fossil fuels, but it won’t happen because of bureaucrats and crony-capitalists – it’ll be genius entrepreneurs competing in a free market.

On government spending, we campaigned on a 10 per cent cut. Liberal Democrat party members believe in a 30 per cent plus cut. There is an endless largess in the NSW budget.

Privately owned firearms are a counter-weight to the power of the state and prevent tyranny. If households in North Korea, Iran, Cuba etc had access to firearms, tyrants would be in prison and those nations would still exist as flourishing entities.

Australia’s ingrained democratic ethos provides some protection against a permanent tyranny (as does our constitutional monarchy), but in the longer term being disarmed means we are sitting ducks in the decades to come. This is far from the majority opinion but the only hope we have of reform is if we make the case.

No philosophy is more race-blind than libertarianism. We know ‘Critical Race Theory’ is just a new version of racism and it is being taught in NSW schools. Our response has been that ‘we support decentralised education that empowers parents’. Good. But until we have empowered parents we need to step up and say ‘race in our schools is harmful’.

The Voice referendum is on the horizon. The Liberal Party is dithering (as usual), and waiting for polling (as usual). We should lead the intellectual case to not just oppose this amendment, but to also remove the shocking ‘race powers’ already in the constitution as a left-over from the White Australia Policy.

Some say we should just move on from Covid. No. We’re not going to let them sweep under the carpet the alarming abuse of our ancient, hard-fought liberal traditions. Some who inflicted the pointless misery have now got a taste for it. Europe’s already talking about ‘flattening the curve’ to reduce energy consumption.

If you agree with this bolder, more purist vision and entrust a new political party voice with your support, I will relish the next campaign.

John Ruddick was recently endorsed as the Liberal Democrat’s lead candidate for the NSW Upper House.