avocadia: Paul Kelly is hardly alone in trying to troll you. A number of people who should know better and do not have the same financial motivations - *cough* Quiggin - are peddling the same malarky. I suppose it is nothing but triumphalism in his case.

Guy: It certainly seems as though both the remaining contenders for the Liberal leadership are talking up a "return to liberalism". I'll believe it when I see it, but it would be good and very healthy for the Australian bodypolitik for this to occur.

cam: Guy, Labor has been out-liberalising the Liberal Party since Hawke. A stint in opposition where they have to oppose government will probably give them their liberal instincts back. Then again the NSW Liberal Party got Schmittian conservative and shot themselves in the foot when they had a winnable election coming up.

The lesson of the last five years of the Howard Government in Australia, and the Bush Administration in the US is that modern conservatism, or Schmittian conservatism, does not produce good governance. Ad-hoc executive whim decimates policy, destroys basic liberties, removes civil rights, and puts government into permanent emergency mode or a Schmittian exception of executive rule. It is completely opposed and incompatible with liberal democracy.

They have a problem too as Labor has the social, cultural and, since 1982, economic liberalism sown up. These days anyway, most of the day to day economic management is not in political hands. The reserve bank and floating dollar respond to crisis better than politics or political interventions.

All the Australian parties are arguments over liberalism. Even the Greens. As Adam pointed out in the Qld election they had the most liberal water policy of all the parties. However, occasionally parties forget the liberal in liberal democracy and govern badly.