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The Age

This Liberal talk about aspiration is code for something else

To submit a letter to The Age, email letters@ Please include your home address and telephone number below your letter. No attachments. See here for our rules and tips on getting your letter published. POLITICS The repeated and predictable mea culpa of 'we need to listen more' from Liberal politicians during the ABC's Four Corners report Decimated on Monday night was wholly unconvincing. The Liberals had three years 'to listen more' after being rolled in 2022. Instead, they chose a cheap Trumpian-style campaign approach for the 2025 election, replete with the requisite display of political spin gymnastics. Despite the effort to paint Peter Dutton as a swell kind of guy, his heavily tattooed leopard spots of reputation preceded him in spades. So maybe here's some possible redeeming starting points. Get rid of the spin about being the party representing aspirational Australian values. This sounds like it's supporting dog-eat-dog self-interest where we know which aspirants in the socio-economic scale the Liberals will prioritise. Get out of the blokey right-wing echo chambers and start delivering policies that have evidence-based substance. Paul Miller, Box Hill South Values? We want vision On Four Corners assorted Liberal folk talked at length about 'our values' and 'what we stand for'. They don't get that the Enlightenment values, which are their core, are no longer their exclusive preserve. Voters would rather hear about the Liberal Party's ideas, vision, policies – values as action in the real world of our complex, multicultural society and environment under siege. They are not going to be moved by whingeing about wokeism, or unsupported guesses about what the 'quiet people' – whoever they are – might want. George Brandis seems to get it, but frankly many others don't. Michael Read, Carnegie Misleading names Liberal once meant being willing to respect or accept behaviour or opinions different from one's own; to be open to new ideas. In a political sense, it meant favouring policies that were socially progressive and promoted social welfare. Conservative meant being averse to change or innovation and holding traditional values. In a political sense it meant favouring free enterprise, private ownership and socially traditional ideas. To this extent the current Australian Liberal Party is at best conservative rather than liberal. In recent years the Liberal Party seems to have adopted the approach whereby any proposal or policy suggestion put forward by the Labor Party – whether on electric vehicles, tax, or the Indigenous referendum – is automatically regarded as completely wrong and thus must be opposed with facile slogans and ridicule. I'll be watching with interest what comes of the current off again-on again discussions between that party and the equally quaintly misnamed National Party. John MacInnes, Warrnambool Climate wedge In Cathy Wilcox's cartoon (Letters, 27/5) the Nationals' David Littleproud checks the weather extremes of the climate crisis, finding no problem. Littleproud is wedged politically between the Liberals who believe in net zero, but do little about it, and the likes of Matt Canavan, who deny climate change with recent comments like, 'there's just not credible evidence that droughts or floods are getting worse in this country'. John Hughes, Mentone Nuclear dump Without exactly saying it and with little fanfair, the Nationals have dumped their nuclear policy. David Littleproud's announcement that a nuclear roll-out would not be contemplated unless it was financed by the private sector (' Liberals and Nationals closer on Coalition fix, spotlight moves to Littleproud leadership ', 23/5) is the death knoll for any future nuclear plans. Additionally, no Senate in its present makeup would lift the existing ban. THE FORUM