John Stuart Mill once wrote that not all conservatives are stupid, but most people who are stupid are conservative. That is probably because they are afraid of what they don’t know. People seek guidance at every turn and accept the time honoured practices and formulae of the past; they view such a strategy as safe. In short, they don’t know any better and don’t want to. They just want to be reassured. Conservative politicians are good at offering that. It’s politically clever but it’s not leadership.

Prior to the time when Gough Whitlam came to power I was apolitical. Back around the late 1950s my parents were DLP voters which was hardly surprising coming as they did from an Irish-Catholic background. They thought they were supporting a Catholic breakaway party resisting what was perceived as an unhealthy communist influence within the Labor party.

This was the era of Bob Santamaria…