They don't call them "conservatives" for nothing. Conservatives just want everything to go back to the way it was - especially the way it was in the 1950s. I've largely abandoned tormenting Piers Akerman these days. With the Liberals wiped from Government across Australia these days, Akerman is just a sad, desperate man. Picking on him is like hunting dairy cattle with an AK-47. But he still tries, even if he's reduced to the "soft issues", like how children should best be taught to read. Phonics is the way to go , according to Akerman - contrary to the views of the "the inner-urban, academic-stacked Labor branches" who prefer "systems chosen for their ideological purity". (I think that's what he's saying. Akerman's writing is barely lucid at the best of times). It's Reds Under the Bed, or at least under the school desks, recycled for the new millenium (so Akerman is at least in favour of some recycling). Go back fifty