Across the Anglosphere, recent conservative governments have tended to be in office but not really in power – because they lacked an agenda of their own or because what agenda they had was thwarted by a leftist establishment.
In 2016, Donald Trump was first elected on a promise to “drain the swamp” but eventually “the swamp” got him.
As someone who had never been in government and was unfamiliar with Washington, he had instincts rather than well-developed policies or even well-thought-through ideas for how to develop policy.
So he churned through a series of cabinet outsiders, businessmen such as Rex Tillerson and generals such as Jim Mattis, who were clueless about making a difference or turned out to have little like-mindedness with their boss.
Trump’s cuts to red tape and tax were enough to create an economic revival but his failure to tame the administrative state – which took over the pandemic response and then united behind a left-establishment challenger – doomed his first bid for a second term.
The British Conservative government first elected in 2010 was initially handicapped by being in a coalition with the centre-left Liberal Democrats, then internally divided over Brexit, then led from the insipid centre under Theresa May and finally sabotaged by a “remoaner” establishment that the previous Labour government had empowered via the Equality Act, devolution and changes to the judiciary that no Conservative leader had the gumption to repeal.
Boris Johnson had the potential to be a great prime minister but squandered working people’s support on the altar of climate change-driven policy gimmicks such as mandatory electric cars and heat pumps replacing gas boilers.
Eventually, furious conservative voters with an understandable desire to punish the party that had let them down ended up punishing themselves by electing an incompetent and clueless Labour government.
The Australian centre-right Liberal-Nationals Coalition government that I led into office in 2013 started strongly enough by stopping a wave of illegal immigration by small boat and by repealing a carbon tax and a mining tax. But Senate obstruction sabotaged its first, economically reforming budget and internal policy differences then led to a revolving-door prime ministership.
If the clock could be turned back, I would have insisted all my frontbenchers provide a detailed blueprint of what needed to change to make a difference in their portfolio area, and explain how their proposed changes reflected our “smaller government, bigger citizen” political instincts.
I would have insisted that at least a version of their thinking be made public well before an election. That way the bureaucracy – or at least that section of it still motivated by traditional Westminster ideals of impartial public service – would have had more guidance in policy formation.
And incoming elected and accountable ministers would’ve been less susceptible to being snowed by unelected and unaccountable officials. An example of this was the introduction, by ministers who had been captured by bureaucrats, of the social engineering, gender fluidity encouraging Safe Schools program that was masquerading as an anti-bullying initiative, even though it had been devised under my predecessors.
This is where incoming ministers need to have thought through all the key issues they are likely to deal with and be sufficiently robust to interrogate and stand up to officials urging caution or assuring them that the “experts” know best.
Judging by the blizzard of announcements and appointments since his 2024 election, Trump is much better prepared this time. He seems to have used his time out to ponder how he may do better and since his election he has been acting quickly. It’s not clear how much collaboration there was between Trump’s team and efforts such as the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, but at least a group of clever policy analysts at various think tanks has been pondering doable centre-right options for the incoming administration.
If I had my time again, I would have worked in advance with like-minded institutes to prepare more detailed plans for key incoming ministers rather than have them largely directed by the bureaucracy based on sometimes thin pre-election policy announcements.
Winning an election on a promise to be different and subsequently having to make excuses when not enough changes is the trap to be avoided by every centre-right political movement on the verge of victory.
In a recent op-ed for Canada’s National Post I set out this track record for centre-right parties and offered some advice on how best to avoid these trap for incoming governments, as the turmoil in Justin Trudeau’s government suggests a future Conservative win in Canada is ever more likely.
Naturally enough, shrewd politician that he is, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre will be taking nothing for granted and will be trying to win every possible vote. Still, after almost a decade of Liberal rule, culminating in a housing crisis, a cost-of-living crunch and a crime wave, a smart opposition would be thinking almost as much about how to govern well as about how to win the coming election.
Up against a shop-soiled government, winning an election is the relatively easy part of an opposition party’s job; the hard part is getting ready to run a good government, especially with the bureaucracy, judiciary and upper house all likely to be obstructive.
Even a big majority in the Canadian House of Commons does not guarantee that an incoming Poilievre government will be able to implement a strong conservative program.
For one thing, incoming ministers – most of whom will have little practical government experience – will face difficulties with policy implementation.
For another, Canada’s appointed-until-retirement Senate is stacked with political progressives who are bound to be, at best, sceptical towards the new government. And Canada lacks even the hard-to-do and rarely used mechanisms for breaking a deadlock between the two houses of parliament and for changing the Constitution to overcome judicial activism that Australia has.
This is where it’s especially important for an incoming Canadian government to have the strong and explicit mandate for change that only detailed policy proposals can generate.
Across the past two years, Poilievre has brilliantly mobilised and crystallised opposition to the Trudeau government with his political mantra: axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget, stop the crime. This clearly identifies some of the key problems an incoming government will tackle but is less clear about how that might be done. It’s never easy in opposition to get the balance right between saying too much and too little.
But the more specific an opposition party that’s about to form a government can be, the likelier it will be to succeed, because when voters back a clear and specific plan, that signals to all the unelected senators, bureaucrats and judges that the public wants the proposed changes.
The winds of change are sweeping across the Anglosphere. Poilievre can ensure that this will mean more than voting out the failed incumbent; it will mean delivering a new agenda for a better Canada.
Tony Abbott was prime minister from 2013 to 2015.
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