Canavan Syndrome
The estimable John O’Sullivan, former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, writer, exemplary contributor to Quadrant magazine and President (and founder) of the Danube Institute, is famous for his “O’Sullivan’s Law”. That any institution that doesn’t start off its life as explicitly right-wing will end up drifting leftwards.
https://www.conservapedia.com/O%E2%80%99Sullivan%E2%80%99s_First_Law
Sadly, we are now experiencing a new phenomenon, or at least an old phenomenon with a new face. And that is the face belonging to Matt Canavan, leader of the Nationals.
If it hasn’t already been named, let us call it Canavan’s Law. In this case, let us call it after the prime case study rather than the guy who thought of it.
It is as follows:
Even right-thinking and right-leaning politicians and public figures will inevitably suppress their real views on core issues, at least publicly, when the institutions they lead or participate in have different “corporate” views.
Call it supine followership. Or narrowing the Overton Window to the achievement of the doable. Or sensible centrism. Or prioritising winning government. Or not letting the good become a prisoner of the perfect.
All sounds reasonable. Mass parties don’t want everyone “freelancing”. It is merely Machiavellian. Recognising the laws of realpolitik, in the tradition of (the master Austrian diplomat of the 1800s) Prince Metternich and his modern acolyte, Henry Kissinger. Idealists … get with the program. This is the approach of the “don’t split the right vote” brigade.
But …
It might also be seen as the political version of another law … That conforming to the groups to which you belong will always end up being a higher priority than your erstwhile rampant individualism. There is quite a bit of research which shows that people’s greatest desire is to be accepted by their social group. Think of Covid, of mass formation, of teen (and older) social media behaviour and of Asch’s experiment.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html
(I will write on this separately, under the title Peak Individualism).
It is superficially appealing. But it also explains why the polity never changes for the better. And it explains the surges in the polls of One Nation, Reform UK and (now) Restore Britain. Ultimately, it is bullshit.
Let us look at an example of Canavan’s law in action.
When Canavan, by some distance the smartest Nat going around and with the right views on most issues, was part of the outsider class within the Coalition, he often sided with the Covid heroes – Roberts, Antic, Babet, Christensen and Kelly (while the latter two were still around in the Parliament) – on the core issues facing the country. Issues like health tyranny, digital ID, and others. AI search notes:
Yes, Nationals leader Matt Canavan has crossed the floor on multiple occasions throughout his parliamentary career.
Some of his notable floor crossings include:
· Social Media Bans: Crossing the floor in late 2024 to oppose or alter restrictions.
· COVID-19 Mandates: Crossing the floor in 2021 to support Pauline Hanson’s private member’s bill seeking to prevent vaccine discrimination and mandates.
· … He has also actively threatened to cross the floor on other issues, including climate and emissions targets.
Yes, he supported Pauline Hanson! Now he bags her. And her supporters. Many of whom were his Party’s, once. That was then.
Mention of his climate scam pushbacks brings us to the Paris climate agreement, and to Canavan’s Law.
A number of observers have noted that a position once advocated by Matt, that of the importance of leaving the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, has now become something he doesn’t want to talk about. Since the Liberal Party position is NOT to leave the Paris Agreement. And when we say the Liberal Party position, we really mean the position of the Liberal left, who still run things.
Matt’s “new” position is nonsense on stilts. To those who might say, well, in a mass party, there will always be compromises. Well, yes, there will. But, surely, not on core business. And leaving Paris IS core business. Core to his Party – mysteriously still in Coalition with a Party still controlled by globalists and wokesters. Core to his Party’s base. Core to the future of the nation’s economy. Core to good policy.
Leaving the Paris Agreement is a stake in the ground. Rich in symbolism and central to the ON insurgency.
But for Matt, it is now (clearly) a step too far. Despite our polity being in a state of transition, which may or may not be permanent, away from a UniParty duopoly towards the domestic equivalent of multipolarity.
Now, it seems, ditching net zero is respectable. Even Sir Tony Blair (of all people), the doyen of international managerialism, advocates it, in the British context.
Of course, the IPCC itself is also now dialling back climate catastrophism. AI search, sourcing the IPA(!) notes:
The IPCC plays down alarmism in its reports by focusing on objective, peer-reviewed science, shifting away from implausible worst-case emission scenarios, and carefully calibrating its language to communicate uncertainty.
The ground is shifting under the alarmists. And the lunatics. Like Bowen. Mr $150 million COP corruption. Surely it is time for a little leadership, right about now. For breaking free from Canavan’s Law. For going big on calling out the climate scam. For firing the biggest guns.
Let us (again) remember the spirit of the feisty Country Party leader, Jack McEwen, who refused to serve with a particular Liberal leader (Bill McMahon) in the 1960s and threatened to leave the Coalition, then in government, if the Libs made him leader. They didn’t. At least not at that time.
Is resisting climate ideology that important? When the climate saboteurs now in power start demolishing power stations (Liddell), yes, it is. Canavan knows this. As does the newly minted Liberal Party President, Tony Abbott. Who knows, and once said (privately) that “climate change is bullshit”.
And the Coalition wonders why ON is now leading in the polls. It is even ahead of Square Head Albo.
Pauline Hanson is the one leader going around who has not succumbed to Canavan’s Law. Is there a hint there?
Politicians who play to the wrong crowd are destined for the chop. This is the emerging new reality. And the ground can shift very, very quickly, as is now apparent. Tony Abbott says that the time of the UniParty is over.
https://quadrant.org.au/news-opinions/politics/the-sunset-of-the-uniparty/
One can only hope that his prognosis is accurate and not just merely optimistic and self-serving.
I will only come to accept that when Canavan’s Law is shown to be a thing of the past. When clever Machiavellian realpolitik in the service of legacy corporate ends is shown the door, in the face of the wishes of we-the-people. Angry people, yes. But clear-headed people.
Traditionally, leadership has been defined by getting ahead of the pack, by seeing the signs, by sniffing the breezes, by defining the narrative in one’s own terms, by bringing the people along, by being, well … Churchillian … in May 1940.
Churchill was certainly NOT a victim of Canavan’s Law. The secret sauce of future leadership might well be doing the same.
We are observing this playing out in real time. As they say.
Paul Collits
2 June 2026
Your sane perspectives are a healing balm. Bless you, Paul.