Quarterly Essay 37 What's Right?: The Future of Conservatism in Australia

Where did the Right go wrong? With the departure of George W. Bush and John Howard, conservative parties in the US and Australia entered a period of turmoil. Foreign affairs, economics, the environment all were issues to be avoided. Most profoundly, conservatives no longer seemed to have a compelling vision of the future and arguably still dont. How did the Right end up in this state? How might conservatism renew itself? In this illuminating essay, Waleed Aly begins by unravelling the terms Right and Left, arguing that these have become meaningless. He contends that conservative parties have backed themselves into a corner by embracing free-market extremism, and that an illiberal social politics including prescribing who or what is Australian is not the answer, electorally tempting though it may be. Aly discusses what a better conservatism might look like. He predicts that the key issues of the day, such as climate change and the financial crisis, mean a reactionary brand of politics i