I dumped the Libs and the left-right drudgery. Voters simply ask: What will make us better?

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Thanks to our enviable system of compulsory and preferential voting, Australia has largely enjoyed a centrist political life. But recently Australians have headed away from the centre and towards the edges. I don’t think that’s out of choice – it’s desperation.

Many of the political fractures of today boil down to establishment versus anti-establishment. In a bygone era, the anti-establishment were radical anarchists. Today, they’re the working middle class, overlooked time and again by our major political parties.

It’s been a long time since Australia had a bold, reformist government, and you can tell. The institutional behemoths occupying the establishment terrain are systemically flawed, disproportionately distracted by their own innards, and often meek and ineffective. Australians shouldn’t have to choose between the establishment or effectiveness. We should be able to have both in one.

I spent years trying to reform the Liberal Party from within, but this year I quit both the party and the organisation I founded to recalibrate it, Hilma’s Network, which strove to attract Liberal women into politics. Ultimately, I ran out of patience and steam.

People have often asked me what I’ll do next. I believe Australians are........

© Brisbane Times