but the good life for ordinary men and women. Theordinary man, as I know him, asks for a happy life,not a complaining one; for a full life, not an idle one.”Which brings me to the great challenges we face if weare to be successful in seeking to represent our fellowAustralians.to be an active part of our great political movement.But we must also recognise that this involves more thancriticising the Labor Party, especially when in Opposition.It is often said that Oppositions do not win elections,governments lose. This is partly true, but the Oppositionmust be credible and believable to succeed.First, we must engage more of them in the politicalprocess. I am told that when Menzies and others formedthe Liberal Party in 1944, there were 200,000 members.The population of Australia was just seven million people.Today the membership of the party would be lucky to bemore than 50,000 people, while the national populationis 25 million. In other words, there were some 15 timesmore members in the early years of the Party than thereare today. We are not alone, the same trend has afflictedour major opponent, but we need to engage more of ourfellow Australians.That means we must understand their challenges andaspirations. In his ‘Forgotten People’ broadcast - perhapsthe most famous of Menzies’s speeches, he observed:As Menzies said: “Opposition must be regarded as a greatconstructive period in the life of a party, not a period inthe wilderness, but a period of preparation for the highresponsibilities in which you hope will come.”Let me recount a sobering statistic. Since 1990 in theStates and Territories, Liberal/National parties haveonly been in government for an average of 12 years.While this varies from place to place, State and TerritoryLiberal/National coalitions have only sat on the Treasurybenches for a little over one-third on average of the past30 years. Only in one State, Western Australia, has theLiberal Party been in government for more than 50%of the time since 1990. Currently, it is likely to be sometime before the party is returned to government in WA.I do not believe that the real life of this nation is tobe found either in great luxury hotels and the pettygossip of so-called fashionable suburbs, or in theofficialdom of the organised masses. It is to befound in the homes of people who are namelessand unadvertised, and who, whatever their individualreligious conviction or dogma, see in their childrentheir greatest contribution to the immortality oftheir race. The home is the foundation of sanityand sobriety; it is the indispensable condition ofcontinuity; its health determines the health of societyas a whole.These ‘forgotten people’ were the “salary-earners,shopkeepers, skilled artisans, professional men andwomen, farmers and so on,” said Menzies. They arethe people I represent in my multi-cultural electorate:the Italian butcher, the Greek greengrocer, the Chinesepharmacist, the Indian restauranteur, the Aussietradesman, the immigrants who struggle to ensure theirchildren can get a tertiary education, and so on. Theywere John Howard’s ‘battlers’. Our challenge is to reachout to these people, to engage with them, to demonstrateour vision for them, and where possible, to invite themWhy is this important? Apart from learning how to livewith and manage the Covid pandemic, there are a seriesof major challenges facing us. These include paying forthe significant debt we have incurred in response toCovid; ensuring the rule of law is maintained and peaceand stability preserved in the face of an increasinglyaggressive Chinese Communist Party; and addressingdomestic challenges including the substantial blow-outin the costs of the NDIS. In addition, inflation is risingglobally, which if it continues, will impact us as well.As John Howard said, how we in Australia respondto these challenges will be determined by the rulingphilosophy and values of the parties in government. It iswhy we must, in Howard’s words, portray and argue forour vision of the common good. This is more than howwe respond to each program or proposal that is mooted.It is about our vision for the way of life for Australians.If the people understand and trust our values, they aremore likely to trust specific proposals. It is our task toargue for the type of Australia, we envisage for the future.This is an edited extract from an address to the ACT Young Liberals,August 7, 2021.46 Australian Polity
Proportion of Time in Government 1990-2021Australian Polity 47
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