In many ways I would like to believe [the possible decline of the Dries] is true, but I doubt it is. There are a lot of ‘conservative’ views evident in public opinion - on patriotism, on crime and punishment, on welfare, on immigration and social cohesion.

What a relief! Esteemed Right wing thinker draws back from the brink of intellectual suicide and political oblivion. Andrew you must be crazy to think that a resurgence of cultural liberalism will help the philosophy of personal initiative and small government.

Is an Open Borders immigration policy implied by libertarianism going to result in a smaller welfare state? I dont think it would give results different from that observed in California, that priceless laboratory for social experiments.

Is legalising drugs going to restore personal initiative? I would like to see how much free enterprise there would be if half the population turned into drug-addled couch potatoes.

Is a more liberal attitude to crime going to result in a freer society? Only if one is prepared to live in a world of gated communities. Hardly an ideal of personal freedom.

Is an atomised society of “constructed” individualism, constantly making over their identities and cutting hereditary and familial ties going to improve the chances of self government? Strong families and communities tend to make civilised individuals. Weak families tend to generate ferals.

Is multiculturalism going to result in a society of self-reliant individualism? Hmm… Most cultures in the world are tribal-based and despise the conservative individualism practised by Protestants in the US and UK.

I think the Right has to get over the silly brand of cultural libertarianism made fashionable over the past generation. It was an ideological fad brought on by younger Right-wingers trying to get with it and down with the cooler hippies.

My suspicion is that the social conservatives (who have allied with the Liberal party) are who are turning people off. The federal Liberal party is taking hits on all the “wet” issues, to the point where the dry issues are getting ignored…If smaller government and more liberal free market policies are what the Liberal party aspire to, they are going to have to cut the social conservatives loose ala the democratic labor party.

Wrong. In fact the parties of the Right went through their worst phase ever during the period when they attempted to be trendy and take on with-it social causes. The “Wet” LN/P vote declined from 1969-72 and from 1972 through 1996 it held power for a total of 11 years - a 45% ratio. Well below its historical average.

It is social conservatives that keep the LN/P in general and Howard in particular, in the game. There would be no reason at all for most people to support a Right wing party if it was not socially conservative and culturally nationalistic. Patriotism in polity and family values in personality are the what keeps the Right alive and kicking amongst the populus.

I predict that the Wettish Liberals, as represented by the DEMs, will be wiped out at this election. And the very Wet GREENs will not pick up that many votes given the ecological correctness of the major parties.

It is entirely proper that a Right wing party committed to free enterprise will follow a socially conservative and culturally nationalistic philosophy. A successful culture of capitalism relies on a personal ethic of family responsibility and a political ethic of civic responsibility. Japan is a good example.

The chart that most interested me (on p.68, for those who download the publication) was the division of issues into economic and non-economic. This shows that since 1998 the Liberals have moved to the right on economic issues and to the left on non-economic issues.

To say that Howard, “since 1998 has moved to the left on non-economic issues” seems to be wrong on the face of it. Howard’s ideological reputation over the late nineties through early noughties has been built on reinforcing Australia’s populistic social conservatism.

In general Australia’s dominant political tendency over the past decade has been a popular resistance to elite-driven social change whether this be economic rationalism or political correctness. The converse of this has been a community tendency to relying on the personal and professional, rather than political, for making some kind of human progress.

In a more specifically ideological sense Howard has been particularly strong on pushing a nationalistic cultural identity policy. This comes through in his border control, immigration civics and family values policies.

And how can the claim that the LN/P’s “have moved to the right on economic issues” with its “strong spending increases on health and education…with growth-oriented economic policies used to finance a large welfare state.”?

The only exception to the bi-partisan drift to the statist Left is Howard’s ideologically driven Work Choice policy. But this “exception proves the rule” as WC will be revoked or revised when the LN/P loses control of the parliament.

And it is pretty clear that there is a bi-partisan drift to the nationalist Right is beyond doubt, given the collapse of the multicultural consensus and other rat-bag hangovers from the ratbag seventies cultural Left.

So in general both parties have drifted to the statist Left in economic matters and the nationalistic Right in cultural matters. With a more general social conservatism constraining rapid change of any kind in all politically-related institutions. This is the reality of ‘big government conservatism’.

Don’t those results depend very much on how the question is phrased?

For example, ask people about ‘welfare’ and they give it the thumbs down, ask them about ‘helping poor children’ and they give the opposite response?

Not confident of that, it’s just my recollection of the surveys I’ve seen. My own gut feeling is that people are deeply hostile to welfare going to ‘undeserving’ folk (’bludgers’), but are not necessarily in favour of cutting the LEVEL of benefits - just targetting them better and making sure people are making a genuine effort to find work.

This was a once-off case, as Australian law can now deal with people like Hicks.

I haven’t lived in NSW for years, but thinking back to Kerry Chikarovski and the like, it never stopped the NSW Liberal party before.

The Hicks case had no political impact for a long time, but it reached a point in the last 6-12 months when the Americans looked absurdly incompetent for letting his case drag on so long, and the government ended up looking foolish for going along with the increasingly lame excuses for delays. The gag on Hicks looks to be just another political bungle by the Americans.

I don’t think it has any intrinsic link to ’social conservatism’.