Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Universities and Research) Share this | Hansard source

So I am not suggesting for a second that what Senator Ludlam said was wrong. I am a sceptic, and I always need to be convinced. That is where I am coming from. In the end, it is the Liberal Party that is the legatee of liberal democracy. Ultimately, it is liberalism that protects individual rights in this country, as it has in the Western world since the Renaissance. Ultimately, the Liberal Party, with its liberalism and with its scepticism of the state, its scepticism of state power and its understanding of state power—the fact that it appreciates what the state can do to the individual—makes the Liberal Party a far better agency to determine balance than the Left in Australian politics.

When we finally arrive at a balance in this parliament, I can at least assure Senator Ludlam—and he is quite right to put this to the coalition—that it is an issue about the relationship of the state and its citizens, and the Liberal Party in particular cannot escape that debate and, in fact, it would have to be central to its resolution.