Tony Abbott has used an interview with an American publication to argue that all successful societies are inherently conservative, and to assert that Barack Obama’s administration is the most left-leaning government in Washington in 50 years.

The opposition leader advanced his arguments about conservatism in an interview with the journal World Affairs. He was making a broad point that in Australia elections are won from the political centre.

Abbott told Mary Kissel, an editorial board member of the Wall Street Journal: “All successful societies are inherently conservative … and Australia is undeniably a successful society” with its “high and rising standard of living”, “just and generally accepted institutions” and “a relatively happy recent history”.

“Good Labor governments can tap into that basic conservatism, just as poorly performing Coalition governments can alienate a basically conservative electorate,” Abbott said. The journal cited Abbott as saying the Australian public was “more comfortable” with the idea of a Liberal-led government. But, he added: “I think it’s inevitably got much more to do with their disappointment and dismay at the Gillard government.”

In a wide-ranging interview, Abbott brands Obama and his administration “the most left-of-centre government in at least half a century”.

He adds: “Now I’m not being critical of Obama … he’s following a well-trod path. But I think it is a fact that the Obama government is a much more statist government than the Clinton administration.”

Abbott suggests that statism is on the rise around the world in part due to the fallout from the global financial crisis, and the departure from politics of “charismatic centre-left politicians who embraced market capitalism” – figures such as Bob Hawke, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton.

Abbott welcomes the Obama administration’s pivot to the Asia-Pacific region, but he appears to question whether the changes outlined by Gillard and the US president will actually alter the status quo in practical terms.

As Kissel notes in the piece, the Obama administration negotiated a permanent deployment of 2,500 troops to Darwin, on Australia’s northern coast, by 2016. “Look, I welcome the so-called pivot to Asia,” Abbott says, “as does the Gillard government. But if all it is is a marine brigade in Darwin in a few years’ time, that’s hardly going to change the strategic balance in this part of the world.”

On Australian political issues, Abbott remarks that the Liberal party has been “very careful, at least in recent years, not to alienate minority groups”. He says the party during the 1980s made mistakes. The Liberals “were at serious risk of alienating newcomers”. Immigrants, Abbott reflects, “are natural conservatives if they are appealed to the right way”.

Abbott does not cite any specific examples in the published interview, but the Liberal party’s One Australia policy in the late 1980s proposed a cut in Asian immigration. John Howard later acknowledged that policy had been a mistake.

On the subject of foreign investment, the opposition leader notes there is “a degree of anxiety about Chinese and Middle Eastern investment. But in the end the vast majority of Australians understand that we need foreign investment.”