We’ve been hearing a lot of talk about listening. The new Liberals, under the leadership of Sussan Ley, want to do more of it.

Like the failing entertainment industry, they believe they have to hold up a mirror to some contrived, fictional version of modern Australia to attain popularity.

People have to see themselves. Not good ideas or plans to save the country. Just a veneer of egotism lashed awkwardly to the existing model.

After all, every Labor voter is the spitting image of Albanese. They all have his cliff-front property and swollen bank balance. Millions of students voted because they saw themselves in the housing commission boy, and not the promise to pay off their university debt with working class money.

Sussan Ley is not about to include real Australia in this mirroring exercise. We won’t see the party padded out with tradies, peasant farmers, new arrivals, or business owners who went bust in the pandemic. The Liberals will continue to be a closely controlled microcosm of factional, self-interested pawns and an under-class of terrified, oppressed conservatives with the token inclusion of women and shallow diversity.

On paper, that will equal modernisation. In practice, the We Believe statement will remain curled up in the corner gathering dust.

I was discussing the problem of political listening with a friend the other day. While it sounds good on paper, it is doomed to fail.

Farage and Trump are not the product of listening tours. They are idea creators. Both men observe problems within the communities they wish to win over and then publicise solutions until people start whispering them on the street. These men and their parties are generating dialogue.

The problem with Sussan Ley’s plan to listen is she will likely be hearing the echo of the Long March.

When she says the party ‘must respect, reflect, and represent modern Australia’ she is about to pay tribute to decades of brainwashing and corruption inflicted on the Australian psyche by a predatory Leftwing movement and an absent Right.

Desiring to ‘meet Australians where they are’ is pledging to stand outside the cage bars where they are trapped on a sinking ship, the water rushing in, and Sussan Ley listening carefully to their screams and repeating them back.

Surrendering to this, listening to it, and emulating it will leave Sussan Ley in the same position as the oldest party in the world, the Tories.

Senator Matt Canavan made an excellent point that parties should never listen to people who want them to lose. Speaking of which, on the topic of the modern Liberal Party, The Guardian dredged up comments by former UK Prime Minister David Cameron:

‘We were the oldest political party in the world – and we looked it.’

Look at it now, would be a better perspective.

The Tory problem was never how it looked, it was its parasitic relationship with the European Union and entrenched elitism in a party that was meant to stand for prosperity and freedom. It was suffering an early version of the Liberal wet sickness and went to the same dodgy spin doctors for advice.

Modernising the Tory Party led it into electoral oblivion.

The most popular rising party, already the second largest and soon to overtake Labour, is Reform – which looks like the old conservative party and is led by a man who embodies Middle England. They are even taking over the old conservative clubs and turning them into Reform pubs.

It’s almost as if the soul of Britain wants to be great, not modern. That people want coherency, not a mirror. And that most would rather be rich instead of Woke.

Let’s see if Sussan Ley will listen to a publication that wants conservatism to survive.

Don’t go on a listening tour. Don’t run around making mirrors to reflect the ideas and beliefs that have destroyed the Australian dream. Don’t buy into the nonsense that people have to see themselves in a party room to vote – Albanese certainly doesn’t.

And if you hear university kids talking about how much they love communism, free stuff, and Palestine, just remember that all those things will kill them. Leaders have to protect people from misguided and dangerous whims set loose on society.

If you feel the need to listen, listen to Farage and Trump. Or at least, look carefully at what they have done. Both are conservatives whose victories were (or will be) so absolute that the Left enter a death spiral.

Listen to your We Believe statement and ask the party room in what way do they support freedom? Small government? How do they adhere to the stated brand of their party? What part of attacking free speech, for example, adhered to these founding principles? Is silencing the public on social media really an act of listening?

Soon Sussan Ley will realise that the source of her electoral problems come from within the wets who have allowed self-interest to outweigh the needs of Australia.

Have you ever asked why the Liberals want the Nationals to stop talking about the nasty side-effects of Net Zero destroying the regions? And then really thought about that answer…

It’s not because the city voters hate their regional families and friends.

It’s not because city voters are cheering on the installation of wind turbines in front of the beaches.

It’s not because city voters think rainforests and mountain ranges should be bulldozed for renewable energy.

So we have to ask, what is the Liberal Party’s definition of modern?

And who are they really listening to…

Flat White is written by Alexandra Marshall. If you would like to support her work, shout her a coffee over at donor-box.