A Wish List for Australian Conservatives

Reviewing the state of Australian conservativism, Jason Briant, a Research Fellow at the corporate funded think tank the Institute of Public Affairs, argues conservatives need to "become better organised". Briant writes that while the conservative movement is on a roll, there are "too many small, underfunded organisations that are barely capable of communicating with each other, let alone providing a coherent, credible source of advice for potentially sympathetic policy-makers." Briant believes that there is a need for a "larger, better funded and more professional conservative movement in Australia, possibly loosely modelled along similar lines to the successful movement in the US." One particular target for conservatives' attention, he argues, should be universities -- "particularly the social science and humanities faculties."