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.