The modern Liberal and the age-old message
(This article was published in Action! magazine, early 2000)

We've begun a new millennium - well, except to those who argue the millennium doesnt begin until 2001, but whats an error of 0.001 percent among friends?

This doesn't just mean that the usual New Year things, like the fact our cars have devalued and our clothes are all last years fashions. It also means we have new issues to tackle and that we must turn our vision towards the future and what we can achieve.

As the NSW Young Liberals, we hold among us the future leaders of Australia. Yet, many of the issues that our predecessors faced are now in the past. Women are in the workforce. Conscription has passed. The cold war does not threaten us. Massive government intervention no longer occurs. Other matters - such as privatisation and deregulation - are ongoing, even if the entities involved have been updated.

Yet, in this changing world with a new global economy we face many new things that were not on the forefront of the minds of our past leaders and thinkers. The modern Liberal must combat drug abuse, one of the major social problems of today. We face crippling mental disorders - especially depression. We find people suffering from unemployment - and indeed, even the crippling mindset of generational unemployment. We need to look to sustainable living and taking income from our natural assets rather than diminishing this capital. We live in a modernised, technological world where information flows constantly from every outlet. We find new words on the agenda - republic, reconciliation, and perhaps other things beginning with "R".

How will we approach these matters? How will we solve these problems? It is these causes and issues that become the property of the modern Liberal - we will rarely find in the speeches or Hansards of the past clear-cut commentary on how to deal with them. New thought is required.

But, yet, in all these, the modern Liberal can well learn from the past because we possess something precious, and that is our unchanging, age-old, message.

As Liberals, our true foundations are of values. These are solid and are unchanging. We believe in the freedom and autonomy and worth of the individual. We believe in the need for enterprise and initiative, as the true creators of wealth and employment. We believe in innovation. We do not believe that people should be carried by society or that the Government owes us a living. Whereas the Government must provide a secure net through which no persons standard of living should fall under, we recognise that ultimately it is up to the individual if they wish to achieve the highest standards of health, of justice, of education and of social welfare. It is only the Liberal Party and its philosophy and message that can help Australia achieve these lofty heights.

Our broad ideals have not changed since Menzies days - and nor should they. However, our ideas, our policies, our structures must. And so too must our politicians and leaders.

We are modern Liberals, yet the essence of our message is unchanging. It is tested; it is proven. The challenge to us comes in articulating and expressing this message in contemporary forms - whether this be means of communications, or matters of public policy that arise anew as the clock continues to turn.

The sun has set on the past, but what we know to be true and hold in our heart remains steadfast and true. This is the modern Liberal - the connection between the solutions of the last century, and those that will arise in the next.