So, here’s a real agenda to take to the next election

Getting the budget back to surplus is not just an economic imperative but a moral one, given that governments should not habitually live beyond their means. Because getting any spending restraint through the Senate tends to be mission impossible, if the budget is to be restored any time soon a centre-right government should commit to no new spending, other than on national security and economic infrastructure.

With the world once more in an era of great power competition, pitting liberal democracies against Beijing-led dictatorships, we can't be content with a naval build-up that might be our biggest in history but is undoubtedly our slowest. Good on the Morrison government for its decision to buy a nuclear-powered sub, but we can't afford to wait decades for the first one to be operational and should lease retiring British or American subs much sooner.

As the Hawke-Howard era showed, good governments can effect change for the better despite the need to work with the states and to get legislation through the Senate. On the other hand, senators now regard themselves as having mandates of their own, and more and more programs are not accountable to any one level of government. My government was able to stop the boats only because this could be done by executive action without requiring any say so from the Senate or the states.

For conservatives, institutional change should be a last resort, and invariably restoration rather than reform. Rather than seeking more co-operative federal-state structures, a centre-right government should be trying to disentangle the commonwealth's responsibilities from state ones so that it's clearer who's in charge and who's to blame when things go wrong.

A constitutional amendment to turn the Senate from a house of rejection to the house of review it was always supposed to be should be considered. Alternatively, the Senate voting system or the Senate's size could be changed to make it easier for the government of the day to get a majority.

At the very least, no new entities that further complicate governance should be created and the national cabinet should be renamed, given that its decisions aren't binding.

Scrapping the national curriculum, cutting back immigration, restoring super to you, building coal-fired power, no new spending, getting nuclear subs and making government simpler: here's a series of specific steps that would make our country stronger, our citizens freer, and our government smaller and more accountable.

I reckon that's a politically saleable, instinctively appealing agenda for the centre right, and hope that coming from a former prime minister doesn't make it harder to adopt.