The great membership institutions of Australian life – the churches, the unions, the parties, the married family – are dying of the same disease. It is the one place in Australian life where the nation does behave like a strict church. The re-pricing temptationWhich brings us to another proposal that has circulated on the right in diverse countries over the past few years: national service. If we run a pen through the label and cut out the second-order, or follow-on, benefits such as patriotism, nothing changes. Australia does have a creed: one administered – about democratic beliefs, liberties, the rule of law – at every citizenship event but abandoned elsewhere.