I fear this piece of comment is way beyond the intellectual prowess of conservatives who regularly troll these pages looking for any opportunity to declare themselves as conservatives, but hardly ever (if at all) actually tell us what they believe in, besides being apposed to the Left

I'm wondering where the role of "beliefs" as such should be placed in the ongoing comments to the article? Though I have never been called a conservative, I feel quite comfortable with the idea of my perspective mediating my political stance as long as I articulate my position etc.

One aspect of conservatism is looking at the past and emphasising what we think is good about it. At some times in the past trade unions have had a much greater role, most jobs were not contract labour, advertising techniques played a much smaller role in politics, the olympic competitors were amateurs with little or no government or corporate support, there were fairly frequent disarmament conferences, there were no megachurches or supermarkets, products were not usually made with planned obsolescence, there were more small stores within walking distance, telemarketing had not been invented and ice cream cones were five cents.

My conservatism would like to see all of that back.

Look here, we rich people are suffering. We need more immigration for bigger markets and cheaper labour through more competition. But the masses are whingeing because ALL the social gridlock and violence costs are quite rightly externalised to their suburbs.

So we have hatched a plan where our superior brains accuse their dumb minds of being too conservative and shame them into accepting more immigrants more hardship and eventually oblivion.

And Oh My God its working!

I just love Australia. The best place since the Third Reich was in charge of Europe. They too knew how to use propaganda all right!
Today the propaganda tomorrow the Brown shirts.

What? Those drive by shootings ARE the brown shirts?

Zeich heil!

Look Max,

I was doing to write a critic of your work based on the evidence of how former conservative governments had governed us but, I turned completely off your argument at the final paragraph.

Joe Hockey in his answer did show a 'deep commitment to fairness', he wants a child to have both a father and mother.
Joe Hockey's insult to Wong is much less than Wong's insult to every married parent in Australia ... including her own.
Joe Hockey did show a 'coherent political theory', he showed a conservative theory of maintaining the staus quo on parenting because it is not only the majority practise but also majority belief in Australia.
Joe Hockey had no need to justify his beliefs but he used a reasoning Wong and her partner could never understand, that of a dad's reasoning based in a dad's experience.
Joe Hockey wasn't puzzled and discomforted as the show ended, he was very comfortable in his belief and it's practise. It was Wong with her comment 'What can I say ...' that showed her as puzzled and uncomfortable.
The audience did watch in embarrassed silence.. at Wong's purile reaction and lack rebuttal of Hockey's statement which showed great life experience, empathy with the vast majority and self-belief.

You can't be taken seriously when you start re-writing the past.

You are 'homophobic' imajulianutter but you are right.