Following the replacement of Tony Abbott by Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister, some conservatives are asking what can be done to recover political influence. What can they do to make a conservative leader again?
The question is predicated on the dubious premise that the Abbott government was in fact conservative. They were better economic managers than Labor, but beyond that their conservatism was ambivalent at best. On most of the big conservative issues they failed abysmally. Yes, they stopped the (illegal migrant) boats, and that was important, but they acquiesced or actually participated in what Greg Sheridan describes as the “cultural genocide” of Anglo Australia.1 Tony Abbott’s alleged conservatism rested to a significant extent on his supposed Anglophilia. But conservative do not kill the thing they love.
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Immigration and Refugees
As a minister in the Howard government, 1996-2007, and as Prime Minister from 2013 to 2015, Tony Abbott supported a non-discriminatory immigration policy that has helped reduce Australia’s Anglo and Western character and introduce the many ills of “diversity.” This would be understandable for a revolutionary intent on destroying national identity and cohesion in order to break resistance to some utopian scheme. But no conservative worthy of the name, in any country, is willing to remove immigration restriction, for to do so is to break tradition, continuity and cohesion. Tony Abbott and his mentor, former Prime Minister John Howard, became radicalised on immigration policy in the 1990s, and Australia is suffering the consequences.
