Will one amendable and repealable piece of legislation override the key guiding principles of Burkean conservatism: prudential judgment and expedience?

When Malcolm Turnbull joined the Liberal Party I had to pick myself up from the floor. What was this defender of the republican cause doing joining a political party that is essentially conservative, whose founder, Sir Robert Menzies, was a true Burkean conservative? Turnbull's propagation of the republican cause showed a deep ignorance of the conservative arguments supporting the maintenance of Australia's present constitutional arrangements. His arguments were all from leftist discourse showing a complete neglect of cultural, social, and political circumstances and their meaning. For Burke, judgment and decision-making about political issues must be situated within prevailing circumstances. At the beginning of what is generally (and rightly) considered Burke's manifesto, Reflections on the Revolution in France, he made an unambiguous statement of a principle that is repeated many times in different ways throughout his speeches and writings:

I flatter myself that I love a manly, moral, regulated liberty as well as any gentlemen of that society [The Revolution Society]... But I cannot stand forward, and give praise or blame to anything which relates to human actions, and human concerns, on a simple view of the object, as it stands stripped of every relation, in all the nakedness and solitude of metaphysical abstraction. Circumstances (which some gentlemen pass for nothing) give to every political principle its distinguishing colour, and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790, Penguin Edition, pp.89/90

Clear principles of knowledge acquisition and reasoning can be drawn from Burke's writings and speeches. I outline these in my Burke section. Within this reasoning framework which includes perception of the natural (moral) law, particular political judgment cannot ignore concrete circumstances - whether political, economic, social, cultural or the nature of the people themselves - without courting political disaster. In the Reflections Burke was combating the revolutionaries who were driven by materialist theories of freedom, equality and rights. His predictions that their specious abstract arguments, ignoring the history and social make-up of France, would lead to social collapse and eventually to a dictatorship, turned out to be unerringly correct.

The process of considering the myriad circumstances surrounding a particular political problem - what Burke in shorthand called subtracting, adding, dividing and multiplying - is a process of applying prudential judgment and assessing the expedience of policy choices. It must be the hallmark of any conservative political party that understands what conservative political philosophy is about, to approach policy and political issues with prudential judgment and expedience in mind.

As Malcolm Turnbull settled into his job as leader of the Liberal Party in opposition, I observe (to the extent I took notice) that his political presuppositions seemed to be different from those that stood out during his republican propagandist times. Two qualities I thought were impressive were his conviction joined to a natural air of authority, and the effort to review policy precisely in the context of the prevailing circumstances. To my embarrassing surprise, I began to think he was the right person to lead the party.

The Liberal Party at the moment gives the impression that many of its members do not understand what conservative thought entails, and that they are drifting into the 'rationalistic' mode of political discourse that has always infected the Labor Party. This, if it is true, will get the Liberals nowhere, because the Labor Party does leftist discourse much better than confused conservatives. There needs to be a going-back to school to learn something about conservative philosophy. The other feature of the Liberal Party that also seems a liability is the lack of cohesion, the sort of cohesion that conservatives of conviction like Menzies and Howard maintained with the right dose of authority. I thought Turnbull had the authority of personality and conviction to be the right man in the right place while the Party rebuilds.

Climate change theory is just that, a theory. No matter how vociferous climate change supporters become about the 'irrefutable' evidence and sneer at the ignorance of their lesser fellow citizens, in the long run it remains a provisional scientific theory at best. The very non-scientific stand of 'consensus' is the political mode of ramming it through the political process. On the other hand, the sceptics base their position on pronouncements of scientists whose research data point to climate change brought about by natural processes, debunking the claim that man's abuse of the environment is the cause. How is the ordinary person to know what is true? The answer is that nobody can be sure. But it is not beyond the ordinary person to understand that crucial economic policy based on a provisional scientific theory is risky - to put it mildly.

My reaction initially to the propaganda of the climate change zealots was that they were for the most part the brand of leftists who have tormented the community for now on fifty years and, even worse, have reduced the nation to a moral wasteland. Was their fanaticism going to cause the same sort of social ruptures?

Climate change theory on reflection is not quite the same as the usual leftist cause. To start with, it is evident that industrial processes do harm the environment. Even if the theory is wrong, it is surely beneficial all round to clean up industrial vandalism and other such environmental harm. In general, protecting the natural environment is right and a duty the community should take up. In short, I can put up with environmental activism provided it does not get too fanatical or does not spill over into other political or moral matters, as happens so vividly with the Greens party. I think many people think the same way.

Second, because there is a chance that climate change theorists are right, it will not hurt to take precautions until we are absolutely sure that they are wrong. It will not hurt to go with legislation for an Emissions Trading Scheme that has been reviewed and weighed up with due prudence. Better to be sure than sorry. Legislation can always be changed or repealed. Now let me look at the concrete circumstances that Malcolm Turnbull had to confront when he became leader of the party.

He had opposite him in the House a government that had roared into office and a prime minister enjoying incomprehensible popularity (well, for a conservative, anyhow). There was a deputy prime minister swaggering around in her characteristic lesbian suit also enjoying huge popularity. Indeed, feminists were swooning barely able to repress the chant of 'girl power', and gay groups could hear wedding bells. Tragically, the painful memory of one of Australia's most successful and effective prime ministers being booted out of office was haunting us all. Full moon had loomed over the 2007 election and Benelong had gone bonkers because of the threat of climate change peddled by part-time political quacks. How could any Liberal Party member forget the rage of Benelong? I don't have to labour the point (excuse the pun), Labor was Goliath and Malcolm, though he had a slingshot, had no more than a tiny pebble to start off with. I think Malcolm realised that he had to adopt evasive tactics to hold off the lumbering giant until he got a big enough stone and put himself into favourable position to hurl at the bluff ideological forehead.

Surveys have shown that a majority of people want the government to take action on climate change even though some, or even many, think there is the usual leftist hysteria in the unending propaganda. This is an irrefutable given. It can't be given back.

The Liberal Party was always going to face legislation on the environment, legislation that would be supported by the people. The stark choice was either to stand inflexibly on the climate change sceptics position and reject any and all legislation that proposed an Emissions Trading Scheme. Again, this was always going to be the form of the government legislation. Or they could acknowledge the severely limiting nature of the circumstances and apply their prudential judgment and come to a decision about what was expedient and achievable in the circumstances.

Taking the first choice under the normal conditions of a unified opposition would be bound to cause an unholy backlash in the electorate. How could one conclude otherwise on the concrete evidence? Then the government would ultimately get the legislation through making the opposition a laughing stock in the community no matter had vigorously they prosecuted their case. The damage to the party would be stupendous, probably scuttling their chances of getting Labor out after the end of a second term.

Taking the second choice, one that remains connected with the concrete circumstances, would at least enable the Liberal Party to push through effective amendments, with the hope eventually of returning to the legislation once in government - certainly if strong evidence arose to undermine the climate change theory. Malcolm Turnbull clearly took the second option. I have no doubt that his practical business experience in situations of conflict played a role here, experience that is obviously lacking in many Liberal members.

But, alas, events in the last week have gone well beyond delusional party intransigence and precipitated Malcolm Turnbull into a clownish nightmare. With key party members first re-endorsing him in the leadership and his position on the ETS legislation after a pitiful challenge, and then turning against him because they had second thoughts, the Liberal Party has been brought to the brink of a political abyss. How stupid and inept can a political party manage to appear?

Every political party has fundamental principles which they must unswervingly maintain if they are to remain credible. For example, the Liberal Party must remain immovable on the issue of same-sex unions. Whatever the outcome of an election, whatever the power of their political opponents, they cannot change this position without changing the party fundamentally and losing credibility. Is the climate change issue one of those fundamental planks? Hardly. Support for an scientific theory that one can neither prove or disprove at the moment is quite compatible with membership of the Liberal Party. Besides, as I say, the ETS legislation is always amendable and repealable.

Malcolm Turnbull's warning in an interview with Nine's Laurie Oaks that the Liberal Party is in self-destruct mode is spot on. People in the media who roundly condemned him for the warning and its vigour, comparing him with Mark Latham, only show how ignorant and uncomprehending some major media voices can be.

I like Joe Hockey, as most people do. He is personable and comes across as honest and genuine. I think he is on the point of making a disastrous decision.

Comment: gerard@gerardcharleswilson.com