With Easter, the season for reflection, forgiveness and re-births upon us, the Federal Liberal Party needs to take stock and chart a new course and find a new narrative, post the disastrous Aston by election outcome, accepting they no longer connect with middle Australia.

Make no mistake – the Australian political landscape has altered. Debt and deficit, climate change and culture wars, industrial relations and defence: The staples of previous conservative government victories are either neutralised as issues, or supplanted by a new community consciousness.

This has happened because of irreversible global developments and the very adroit positioning of the Federal Labor Party. Similarly the media landscape has changed with the Murdoch media in decline and plurality of views and opinion the new black. Read,the world has moved on.

The repositioning of the pieces on the public policy chess board have left a very narrow but still available path for the tories to prosecute. Moreover, the old Kings and Queens on the chequered board are well and truly checkmated. New stratagems are required.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton was brave and courageous to front the ABC Insiders the day after the catastrophic loss. In what at times was a barely above water defence of both his party and leadership, he hit upon the path to resurrection of the Federal Liberal Party, a clarion call to the community on aspiration, defined in contemporary terms. At the heart of aspiration is tax reform, personal freedoms and access to opportunity .

It’s time for the conservative think tanks to start fashioning these new agendas based around aspiration and to create a contest of ideas. They also to need to adopt Peggy Noonan’s famous “ a thousand points of light” allegory and champion self-help, volunteers and non- government actors.

For the Liberals to move forward and reclaim the middle Australia seats they have to connect to service clubs, sporting, cultural and community groups, not just the elites. No amount of targeted social media campaigns driven by AI engines will supplant the need to reconnect to the grass roots.

If the Liberals indulge in internal reprisals, or continue to openly talk about themselves , rather than get on with the job of developing new attractive and resonant policies, they will face three, not two terms in opposition. Labor must be looking on in glee.

Greg Hallam is a former CEO of the Local Government Association of Queensland who writes occasionally for InQueensland.