CLA chief executive Bill Rowlings, who joined the Liberal Party in the 1960s but resigned in the 1970s when the first flush of the right-wing “Uglies” hit, may have struck on the answer: go to the Liberals’ highest power, the party’s founder and the nation’s longest-serving prime minister, Sir Robert Menzies.
After the Liberal wipeout at last year’s election, Rowlings noted that “Liberal activists” such as long-time federal minister Chris Pyne and federal vice-president Fiona Scott called for a return to Menzies’s founding principles.
Rowlings wrote: “Menzies’s Australian Liberalism is, within the limits of social justice, the primacy of the family, parliament’s power over the executive, the rule of law, and particularly:
“. Freedom from government interference in an individual’s right to speak, to choose to be ambitious, industrious, to acquire skill and seek and earn reward, provided individuals accept responsibility for what they do or say; ………….
Human rights: could Menzies help Albanese see the light? By Andrew Fraser, P&I