...favour her account of Australia's Liberals, whom she describes as the "moral middle class". At least, members of this class were, for most of our first 100 years as a nation, the leaders, the policy makers, and the sources of liberalism's core values. That is her opinion.

Brett presents a number of major themes. There is the thesis that Australian liberalism and conservatism derived their identity from Anglo-Saxon Protestantism, and that, as allegiance to Protestantism (and indeed to formal religious commitment generally) has melted away, so has the ideological base. The old confidence that Protestant liberals represented the leading moral force in the community has also melted away. Although the author doesn't say so in as many words, it was Labor that came to be seen, and to see itself, as the place where morals and politics most easily coexisted.

Brett's second point is that liberalism and conservatism were and are different, although issuing from the same source: English social, political and religious thought. Liberals and conservatives are uneasy bedfellows, temperamentally and ideologically--and can only make common cause...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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