I don’t care what left-wing pundits say about the last election. Political parties shouldn’t chase young voters. It’s obvious from our education debacle that young people will do as they are encouraged to do by the system. Leadership (or its absence in the case of Albo) is what shapes our youth. Successful political leaders create a vision and bring citizens along with them. They don’t follow the herd unless they are part of the current left-wing moment we are suffering through in Australia.
Nothing else can explain the atrocities that keep happening in Melbourne, the most diverse and most divided city in Australia. It’s pretty clear this is cause and effect rather than correlation. Competent Prime Ministers would have ensured Australian citizenship wasn’t a free-for-all and then clamped down on antisemitism rather than, through inaction, inadvertently encouraging it.
As we have seen in the US, President Trump is decisive and effective. Even if politicians hate him, they are jumping through his hoops. No non-citizens are allowed to free ride. Given he is the most powerful leader in the history of humanity, it makes sense, and his leadership is reshaping how Western governments function.
This means that Albo’s inefficacy cannot be limited only to the domestic sphere. Australia is part of the world no matter how much Albo thinks he is a political storm in his own political teacup.
Albo only exists because his biggest supporters are the wets in the Liberal Party. The wets in the Liberal Party decided they preferred their salaries and pensions over serving their country. This splintered the conservative vote at the last election.
As I predicted, the Liberals refused to fight, and they took a beating. As a consequence of their refusal to stand up for ordinary Australians, the party of my political hero, Sir Robert Menzies, is now dead to me.
However, based on events in the US and the UK, there are three positive developments that conservatives may find encouraging.
First, President Trump has revitalised conservatism. Not a true conservative himself, his common sense is enough for conservatives to want him on the conservative side. To me, he is a modern conservative who has risen to the challenge of renovating Western political institutions that were neglected by governments before being occupied by socialist squatters.
Second, new conservative movements are emerging. In just a few short years, Reform UK looks likely to replace the Labour-lite Conservative Party as the main opposition.
Even though Australia is always a few years behind and a decent Prime Minister could see the writing on the wall and do something different, we inevitably replicate what happens overseas as if witnessing a long, slow trainwreck where we are the passengers.
As I’ve argued elsewhere, if Reform UK can do it there against one of the oldest political parties in history, surely a Reform Australia Party could do it here against a major party that is barely 80 years old.
Third, assuming my long, slow trainwreck thesis is correct and Australia continues to follow overseas trends, then the left is next in line for a good splintering.
Recent developments in the UK indicate that Jeremy Corbyn, alongside former Labour MP Zarah Sultana (she resigned from Labour on July 4), is forming a new far-left political party to take on Labour. This move is driven by dissatisfaction with Sir Keir Starmer’s shift towards the political centre, alienating some of Labour’s far-left base.
Polls suggest this new party could capture up to 10 per cent of the vote, a significant portion in the UK’s first-past-the-post system, where even small vote splits can alter outcomes in marginal constituencies.
Jeremy Corbyn’s new far-left party poses a significant threat to Starmer’s Labour government by risking a split in the left vote, a danger illustrated by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 1980s.
In Australia, Anthony Albanese’s Labor government, while currently dominant, faces similar vulnerabilities as left-wing criticism grows. Although Australia’s preferential system offers some protection, a new far-left party could disrupt Labor’s hold on key seats and influence policy through the Senate.
For conservatives, these divisions present a strategic opportunity. But this opportunity won’t be exploited by the existing Opposition because it is scared of its own shadow. Its only accomplishment since 2022 has been flattering Albo by imitating him.
The good news is that the emergence of a new far-left party in either country could destabilise the governing left-wing parties. In Australia, this would be the reverse of what happened to conservatives at the 2025 election.
From a conservative viewpoint, the left’s divisions highlight their tendency toward running out of other people’s money. Eventually, their cohort of leaners outgrows the lifters and reality bites.
As the money runs out and Labor is forced to prioritise centrist policies to maintain its broad electoral appeal and its international standing, the radical lefties will start losing it. This won’t just be the result of economic issues. The money will run out, the lights will go off, and Albo will never get a meeting with President Trump.
Soon after, the radical antisemites and their grifter mates will start calling Labor part of the Uniparty, and the cycle will begin again.
The major difference this time, however, is that the political landscape in Australia will be made up of different players.
In a crazy twist on all modern ideas about the inability of the micro to explain macro issues, it will come down to individuals like President Trump and Nigel Farage and hopefully an Australian champion that helps save us from this curse of politicians following votes instead of cultivating followers.
In the end, every other generation inevitably rediscovers that socialism never works, and the cycle continues.
Dr Michael de Percy @FlaneurPolitiq is the Spectator Australia’s Canberra Press Gallery Correspondent. If you would like to support his writing, or read more of Michael, please visit his website.
