Australia’s conservative heart is scattered. By Jafar Jalili in The Spectator.

Look across the political landscape. Every minor right-of-centre party in Australia carries the mantle for a single principle, usually one that was once the beating heart of the Liberal Party. These parties are not strange hobby groups or disgruntled side-projects. They are the natural by-product of a vacuum. When a mainstream party refuses to defend the values it was created to uphold, those values don’t die. They scatter.

People First defends the principle that government derives its legitimacy from the people.

One Nation defends national sovereignty.

The Libertarians champion individual liberty.

Katter champions subsidiarity and local autonomy.

Family First fights for the primacy of the family.

The Shooters defend property rights and self-defence.

Christian movements defend moral truth.

Even the United Australia Party, sometimes dismissed as eccentric, stands against the rise of managerial overreach.

Each is holding one conservative torch that the Liberal Party dropped. … The battlefield of conservative ideas has not disappeared from Australia. It has simply vacated the Parliament.

hat-tip Stephen Neil