One question I am often asked is what impact Australian Conservatives might have on the election of a Federal Coalition government.
The questioner invariably goes on to state they don’t want a Shorten-led Labor/Greens alliance on the Treasury benches and that the Australian Conservatives might fragment the vote, somehow imperilling the Coalition.
This is a self-serving argument spread by those who seek to maintain the status quo and don’t want to find a better way for our country.
Let me say from the outset that the government’s own conduct will have a greater impact on its electoral fortunes than anything we do over the next couple of years. The Australian Conservatives’ goal is to present a credible and principled conservative alternative for the Australian people to consider.
In the lower house, where government is formed, the compulsory preferential system means that when you vote 1 for an Australian Conservatives candidate you – and only you – can direct your preferences to a major party candidate. Your vote will end up with one of the last two candidates standing – it is never wasted.
In the Senate, a strong Australian Conservatives presence will only strengthen the conservative voice and help shape good, positive legislative outcomes.
Put frankly, the stronger the support for Australian Conservatives, the better the government of the day can be! You’ll know that every decision we make will be reached through the consistent application of our core principles.
I know it’s a new way of approaching politics but it is more important than ever. The recent way is delivering ever poorer outcomes for our nation. Debts and bureaucracy are growing, real wages are declining and hope is evaporating.
That’s why Australian Conservatives offers a better way. It was a way that Sir Robert Menzies recognised in his ‘forgotten people’ speech broadcast 75 years ago this week.
Menzies said:
…the real life of this nation is to be found… in the homes of people who are nameless and unadvertised, and who, whatever their individual religious conviction or dogma, see in their children their greatest contribution to the immortality of their race.
…The material home represents the concrete expression of the habits of frugality and saving for a home of our own…one of the best instincts in us is that which induces us to have one little piece of earth with a house and a garden which is ours…
…National patriotism, in other words, inevitably springs from the instinct to defend and preserve our own homes.
Then we have homes human. A great house, full of loneliness, is not a home…My home is where my wife and children are. The instinct to be with them is the great instinct of civilised man; the instinct to give them a chance in life – to make them not leaners but lifters – is a noble instinct.
And finally, we have homes spiritual. Human nature is at its greatest when it combines dependence upon God with independence of man… This is the only real freedom, and it has as its corollary a brave acceptance of unclouded individual responsibility. The moment a man seeks moral and intellectual refuge in the emotions of a crowd, he ceases to be a human being…
…for a generation we have been busy getting ourselves on to the list of beneficiaries and removing ourselves from the list of contributors, as if somewhere there was somebody else’s wealth and somebody else’s effort on which we could thrive.
…ambition, effort, thinking, and readiness to serve are not only the design and objectives of self-government but are the essential conditions of its success.
…One of the great blots on our modern living is the cult of false values, a repeated application of the test of money, notoriety, applause. A world in which a comedian or a beautiful half-wit on the screen can be paid fabulous sums, whilst scientific researchers and discoverers can suffer neglect and starvation, is a world which needs to have its sense of values violently set right.
Menzies’ speech of 1942 resonates just as strongly today. He changed the course of politics – for a time. Sadly, the malaise that Menzies so pointedly identified has established itself once more and it is being ignored by the major parties.
The time has now come to again change our political course, to strengthen the homes material, human and spiritual. To strengthen Australia, our culture, our economy and our self-reliance.
Only the Australian Conservatives are truly committed to that cause. We haven’t forgotten you, and we haven’t forgotten a better way for our nation.
Cory Bernardi is the author of seven books and has been a member of the Australian rowing team, a publican, an investment portfolio manager and spent nearly 14 years as an Australian Senator.
