Australians all let us regret, for we were weak and blind

Senator James Paterson delivering the Tom Hughes Oration on Tuesday 14 October 2025.

James Paterson’s speech is a good start, but the Liberals need contemporary solutions, not old habits.

With Labor abusing power through slashed opposition resources and opaque governance, the Liberals have a moral duty to oppose effectively, lest Australia succumb to a ‘Victorianisation’ of entrenched left-wing dominance.

The culture wars, consisting of battles over identity politics, rewriting history, and developing idiotic societal norms, are no sideshow. The culture wars are central to the fray.

In the Unfiltered newsletter, Alexandra Marshall wrote:

Michael de Percy weighs in on James Paterson’s rousing speech. ‘Paterson’s speech urged the Liberal Party to end its ‘apology tour’, resolve internal divisions, and recommit to its core values.’ But then Michael cautions, ‘We can pretend all we like that we can use ideas from the 1990s to fix 2020s problems, but such naïve thinking defies all sense of history.’

In the Morning Double Shot newsletter, Terry Barnes wrote:

Senior Liberal James Paterson – the federal parliamentary Liberals’ best and most consistent performer by a long chalk (not that I’ll get a Christmas card from him for saying so) has laid out a decent prescription for the beleaguered party to get its proverbial together. Michael de Percy, however, rejects the Paterson plan outright. He views Paterson’s prescription as anachronistic and unfit for purpose for the uncertain times of the 2020s, as the Liberal party itself remains anchored the mindsets of the 1980s to early 2000s. John Howard’s broad church is dead, says de Percy, whereas Paterson still assumes it is alive. I’d like to have a lively discussion on this with Michael over a few beers, for I think Paterson generally is right. What do you think?

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Australians all let us regret, for we were weak and blind.

James Paterson’s speech urged the Liberal Party to end its ‘apology tour’, resolve internal divisions, and recommit to its core values.

I am not convinced that the fusion of classical liberalism and conservatism is what is needed today.

The broad church is dead and the right… pic.twitter.com/JLGnop49d9

— The Spectator Australia (@SpectatorOz) October 15, 2025

Trump triumphs as hostages freed while peace-haters howl

President Donald J. Trump, the deal-maker extraordinaire.

In a stunning diplomatic coup, the remaining living Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza have finally been released, marking an important step towards de-escalating the Middle East’s interminable conflict. And who do we have to thank? None other than President Donald J. Trump, the deal-maker extraordinaire. 

Instead of welcoming the hostages’ freedom and the nascent peace deal, they’re decrying it as a ‘betrayal’ of the Palestinian cause. Ludicrous doesn’t begin to cover it.

In the Morning Double Shot newsletter, Terry Barnes wrote:

Michael de Percy knows who the biggest hero of the day is: Donald Trump. Like or loathe him, only someone with the titanic self-belief and aggressive personality of Trump could drive both Hamas and Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu into a ceasefire and hostage release deal that could actually hold. Not that the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activists will ever accept their bête noir has delivered what they have always claimed to have wanted since the atrocities of 7 October. Well, stuff ‘em.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Trump triumphs as hostages freed while peace-haters howl.

Amid the celebrations in Tel Aviv and sighs of relief worldwide, a bizarre chorus of dissent echoes from Australia.

Australia’s pro-Palestinian activists, the perennial marchers with their keffiyehs and chants of, ‘From the river to the sea!’ are enraged.

Article |… pic.twitter.com/KsVfBJElrT

— The Spectator Australia (@SpectatorOz) October 13, 2025

Time for a rethink of car manufacturing in Australia

Andrew Hastie is right, we should build things again.

Amid the post-Cold War euphoria from the 1990s onward, globalisation’s architects like Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and even John Howard, preached the ‘commercial peace’ thesis. Open borders, supply chains snaking across continents, and WTO rules would bind nations in mutual prosperity, rendering war obsolete. Australia, ever the eager disciple, signed free trade pacts from Singapore to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), slashing tariffs and welcoming Chinese investment in our ports and mines.

It worked, economically. GDP boomed, jobs flowed, and our ‘mixed economy’, or the pragmatic blend of coordinated and competitive capitalism that Stilwell had so deftly mapped out, thrived.

But geopolitics has a rude habit of upending theory.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Time for a rethink of car manufacturing in Australia.

MICHAEL DE PERCY | "Andrew Hastie’s recent call to resurrect Australia’s car-making industry is far from radical."

Hastie, one of the few Liberals demonstrating any sense of policy and whose China warnings deserve applause, argues for reviving Holden and Ford assembly lines to… pic.twitter.com/THyT040O0j

— The Spectator Australia (@SpectatorOz) October 11, 2025