The leopard can’t change its spots

May 9, 2025

As Ross Gittens colourfully describes, the Coalition “is like that person driving a Holden Commodore”. Gender, age and the small matter of climate change should be crucial concerns for any party. Yet Liberal “values” remain the same: the party “limits its intrusion into people’s lives”, is for lower taxes and keeps the nation “secure and safe” (Christopher Pyne, The Age, 7 May).

And therein lies a problem: faced with the existential crisis of climate change, governments need to be at the centre of both our energy transformation and the mitigation strategies when disasters inevitably arrive. Pyne suggested that “For all of Us” should be “the screensaver for every Liberal activist now and in the future”.

Other commentators offer advice to “appeal” to younger voters/women/the sensible centre. This just sounds like more focus-group-driven, shallow advertising.

At a time when collective action is essential to the nation’s safety and security, a party whose central tenet is individual effort, rather than the collective, is missing the point. If their “For all of us” talk is to be more than an empty slogan, the Liberal Party would need to change its spots and commit itself to meaningful, state-driven initiatives.