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The view has fast taken hold in conservative circles in Australia that Prime Minister David Cameron did not secure an outright victory in the British election because he was not conservative enough: that he offered to the UK electorate the political equivalent of comfort food rather than serving up more succulent chunks of conservative red meat. There are already clear signs that this prevailing orthodoxy might strongly influence how Tony Abbott, the conservative opposition leader, will contest the forthcoming federal election.

With the selective deployment of history, you could argue the case either flat or round that David Cameron was too much of a centrist. True, the British Tories enjoyed their greatest electoral success in recent times when Margaret Thatcher was in her pomp. But equally you could argue that her personal demise was the result of conservative over-reach, when she pressed the unpopular poll tax on a sceptical electorate - in much the same way that John Howard pushed unpopular workplace relations laws, the much-hated , on Australia.

What happened in the 2005 UK election is also instructive. Back then, the Tories hired Lynton Crosby, the electoral strategist behind four consecutive Liberal victories in Australia in the hope that he could do for Michael Howard, the then Conservative leader, what he had done for his Australian namesake, John. But by concentrating mainly on immigration, a so-called "dog whistle" issue which had helped Mr Howard in Australia, the Conservatives failed to oust Tony Blair, even though the incumbent prime minister was the unpopular British architect of an unpopular American-led war.

Six months into his leadership, Tony Abbott has moved the Liberals to the right. He has ditched what many saw as the Australian experiment in a Cameron-style brand of conservatism when Malcolm Turnbull was in charge of the party. In terminology that evokes the Thatcher era, and which is being heard more frequently in these parts, the "drys" are very much in the ascendancy and the few remaining "wets" are operating on the fringes. A conservatives' conservative, who has always claimed to be the ideological love-child of John Howard and a right-wing MP called Bronwyn Bishop, Mr Abbott has already signalled the revival of Howard-era policies. His newly-unveiled immigration policy, aimed at a halting boat people setting out for Australia, is modelled on Mr Howard's Pacific Solution. His planned workplaces reforms have echoes of WorkChoices. He is firmly on the side of the resources sector in its fight with the Rudd government over the super tax on super profits.

Occasionally, there have been policy surprises. His proposal for paid parental leave, which would be paid for out of a tax on employers, sparked a mini-revolt in the Liberal party room.

But for the most part, his policies have not only reflected his strongly-held personal conservative beliefs but a strategic assessment that, after just three years of Kevin Rudd, the Australian people are yearning for the return of a truly conservative government. Whereas Kevin Rudd is often described as Howard-lite, Tony Abbott is offering the genuine product.

So will it work? Malcolm Fraser, the former Liberal Prime Minister, has because it had gone too far to the right. Reportedly, he told friends that he did not like what he viewed as the racist overtones creeping back in his party's immigration policies.

But Tony Abbott appears to be calculating that the face of Australian conservatism has changed: that there are many more Howard conservatives now than Fraser conservatives; and that the power lies with blue collar battlers rather than blue-ribbon patricians like his former leader. He may be will be right, if you'll forgive the unintentional pun. But is it a route which can take him all the way to The Lodge?

The evidence from this week's polling suggests that neither Kevin Rudd or Tony Abbott is offering the kind of leadership that Australians want, and that the Greens have been main beneficiary. The suggests that Greens would get a 16% share of the primary vote, a doubling of its vote at the last election. It also shows that Labor suffered its worst poll numbers in four years, just before Kim Beazley was ousted. As a headline in The Australian puts it, over this excellent piece from George Megalogenis, "".
Whisper it quietly, but might Australia be heading for a hung parliament?

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