Perhaps the easiest part of a critical analysis of a political party such as the Liberals is to accentuate the negatives and simply posit a list of wrongs. But to satisfactorily answer the question ‘What's wrong with the Liberals?’ I owe it to the reader and to critics of the book's central thesis to establish whether or not the party is simply in the middle of a cycle and has moved to the ‘right side of the road’ temporarily, or whether it has shifted permanently. I need also to examine where the party might head in the future, where I would like it to head, and how feasible each of these hypothetical directions might be.

There is no doubt that the federal Liberal Party has now moved away from the blend of liberal and conservative philosophies that were its hallmark until John Howard's second election as leader in 1995. As noted, empirical evidence suggests that electorally, the federal Liberals have radically realigned the profile of political support in Australia. In the 1996 election, the Liberals moved into Labor territory and now hold the majority of the fifty lowest-income seats in Australia. They also hold the majority of the fifty highest-income seats, and this dichotomy may become problematic for the post-Howard party. These moves into what I have termed the new territories, and particularly into those seats where the One Nation sympathisers remain a significant force, have had a devastating impact for the federal Labor Party.