By Tim Soutphommasane
It is hard to believe that barely six years ago Australia appeared to be entering an age of social democracy. I remember after the 2007 election reading one national newspaper's political editor declare that Kevin Rudd was ''now in a position to be one of Australia's great prime ministers and establish a decade of unprecedented Labor power in Australia''.
It hasn't turned out that way, and last week's federal budget had the unmistakable air of finality about it. With an Abbott Coalition government looking a near certain thing, it may be asked: is Australia about to have a new conservative phase in its political life? If so, what would it look like? And how might it change our society?
To be sure, while governments do change nations, political cultures often change slowly and imperceptibly. For all the legislative activity of the Gillard government, and some of the symbolic victories of the Rudd government, Australia's national psyche hasn't changed dramatically as a result.
This remains a country very much defined by the aspirational nationalism of the Howard years. A country that has experienced a generation of uninterrupted prosperity, and whose complaints are voiced in the register of middle-class entitlement and hysterical fear of outsiders, particularly those who come on boats. Labor hasn't succeeded in shifting the political centre of gravity.
'As for any Abbott government, many Australians will likely regard it as taking up where the Howard years left off.'
As for any Abbott government, many Australians will likely regard it as taking up where the Howard years left off. The similarities between Abbott and Howard are obvious: both are devoted monarchists, with a world view anchored in an old, traditional Australia. With some crudeness, critics regarded Howard as a throwback to white picket fences and an Anglophilic past. Many of Abbott's critics view him as someone who clings to sexist views about gender roles.
Such one-dimensional views fail to do justice to either figure. Conservative though they may be, both Howard and Abbott have views that have evolved over time. John Howard as prime minister oversaw a dramatic increase in Asian immigration, a move his former self of the 1980s would have found impossible to fathom. Tony Abbott, who once subscribed to historian Geoffrey Blainey's view about diversity leading to ''a nation of tribes'', has changed his mind about multiculturalism. Despite his alleged sexism - indeed, alleged misogyny - Abbott's paid parental leave is in some respects superior to Labor's legislated scheme.
There is likely, nonetheless, to be a conservatism in any Abbott prime ministership, as befits a man who cites B.A. Santamaria as an important influence. But any paternalistic conservatism will be tempered by the libertarian enthusiasms of some of his frontbenchers.
This points to the misleading nature of conservatism as a political label. So much that is described as conservative is, after all, really about free market liberalism. Modern conservatives owe less to Edmund Burke and more to Friedrich von Hayek - who, of course, famously denied that he was a conservative at all.
Moreover, today's conservatives frequently endorse a form of destructive radicalism towards public institutions and civil society. They admire someone like Margaret Thatcher, whose privatising reforms unleashed the market into all areas of British society and debilitated British communities. They lust for a new round in the culture war, for eradicating the supposed evils of elite political correctness (starting with the ABC and the Australian Human Rights Commission).
There are times when today's conservative ideologues appear to have more in common with the so-called Lunar Right and Hansonist populism. Traditional conservatism never regarded civil society as a political battleground. Its instincts were never subversive - Burke didn't rail against the French Revolution for nothing - but were protective. As American commentator David Brooks explains, conservatism in its truest sense cherishes custom and believes in prudence: any change to society must happen steadily and cautiously.
If this kind of conservatism still exists, it doesn't exercise much of an influence over self-styled conservatives. Then again, Australian political culture has never really had an entrenched tradition of conservatism. Our materialist mindset, our spirit as a country of the New World - these have always militated against an authentic conservative sensibility.
And yet, there may just be something in traditional conservatism worth considering. If you think it strange that I say this as a social democrat, think again.
The similarities between Abbott and Howard are obvious: both are devoted monarchists, with a world view anchored in an old, traditional Australia.
It is revealing that in Britain, the Labour Party under Ed Miliband's leadership has moved decisively towards ''One Nation Labour''. British Labour, in appropriating the moderate One Nation Toryism associated with Benjamin Disraeli, has moved on from technocratic Blairism.
In the face of a radical, mutated conservatism, social democracy may ironically be the most traditionally conservative force left. Who, after all, will stand to preserve the political culture of the common good, and defend it against the all-conquering market?
Tim Soutphommasane is an Age columnist, a political philosopher at the University of Sydney, and has worked as a Labor speechwriter. Twitter: @timsout