The Michael Photios wing of the Liberal party is slowly destroying its host from within, the way cuckoos do to the nests they infiltrate. Photios is the former NSW state minister, now lobbyist and key backroom head honcho for the ‘moderates’. These are the MPs and advisers who managed, incredibly, to install Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister. These are the people who relentlessly push for policies that park the Liberals a microscopic centimetre to the right of Labor. If Labor goes more left, then these moderates hop into their up-market Teslas and race after them. Heck, sometimes they overtake the party they’re chasing and find themselves to the left of Labor – on green energy, on wholesale surrender in the culture wars, on big government spendathons, on genuflecting to the identity politics offence-takers and overseers of the ‘diversity and equity’ scams, on just about everything other than superannuation and unions. The point is that in politics ‘the centre’ is a moveable feast and the supposed virtue of being ‘a centrist’ is no virtue at all unless you approve of the policies that come with it. Under the sway of the Photios acolytes and their ideas of what will win elections, the Liberals have become hostages to Labor; where Labor goes the moderates bay to follow. Why do you think Prime Minister Albanese keeps calling for Peter Dutton and the Liberal party to move left by throwing in the towel completely on net zero and the culture wars? (And by the way, when the Left attacks and remakes our culture that’s just fine and dandy but if the Right tries to fight back and stand up for its views, well that’s ‘opening up the culture wars’ or some such self-interested BS.) Do you think Albanese is actually giving the Libs advice that will help them win elections? He wants them to surrender and not to differentiate themselves.

So I think by now even the recalcitrant dumbos at the back of the class (aka all the political advisers to the Liberal party and half the party room) can see that this is a losing strategy. They tried it on steroids out in Western Australia and the Libs did so badly they aren’t even the official opposition. They tried it in Victoria, opting not to criticise Dan Andrews on his thuggish handling of the pandemic, on his unconstrained spending, on his treaty lark and the policies that divide Australians by characteristics they got at birth. It was a pathetic, weak display and the results showed as much. Then the new Victorian leader opted to out-Guy the man he replaced by taking a disgraceful position as regards Moira Deeming. There was absolutely nothing wrong with attending that rally, you moron Mr Pesutto (who should resign immediately). Oh, and don’t forget Morrison’s trying this ‘moderate’ strategy by signing up to the self-destructive lunacy of net zero, basically eliminating the one thing that had won him the ‘unwinnable’ previous election.

And then last week the Libs lost the blue-ribbon seat of Aston in a by-election. Same dumb strategy, same brutal result. So let me spell this out though I think Mr Dutton already knows what I’m about to say. The Coalition opposition leader has to get off his bum and start taking positions, out loud not under his breath, that align with long-standing liberal values. No more ‘we can’t take a view on the Voice till after the Aston by-election’ because that sort of focus group driven pusillanimity is at the heart of what’s wrong with Libs. Turn off the ABC. They are not our friends. Stand up for principle. No more party machine installing candidates from Brunswick. Argue from first principles.  Go very, very hard against the Voice. (That alone can win the Libs the next election.) If that means taking Julian Leeser out of his shadow cabinet roles, so be it.

Now as it happens right after the Aston loss, columnist for the Australian Chris Kenny came out with a similar sort of plea as this one, namely that it’s time for the Libs to move back to their old-fashioned principles and be against net zero, etc. Well, with one glaring exception. You see Kenny doesn’t want the Libs to fight against the Voice proposal. Kenny is a long-standing supporter of this woeful proposal and remains so even as Greg Craven recently came out and made some pretty significant criticisms of it.  Kenny said that opposing the Voice would not benefit mainstream voters; that it would be a scare campaign; that the Libs would look mean-spirited and anachronistic.

Let me be blunt. Balderdash! This Voice body will have big repercussions and none of them will be good for mainstream voters – how the ABC characterises opposition to that be damned! (For those with an interest in legal niceties, I was invited to write a longish article for the Australian Law Journal to respond to former chief justice French and say why the Voice would be a disaster, for all of us. It’s out soon, Chris. I can send you a copy.) Here I’ll just give a few of the big-ticket points. One. The principle of dividing Australians into groups, only one of which gets special rights, is antithetical to life in a liberal democracy. It doesn’t matter if you say the special right is based on race or on something else. This trades in group rights, identity politics, unequal citizenship and so is wrong in principle. But if that is not enough for you this Albanese wording will make parliament subject to the constitution, and hence to the Voice body ‘making representations… on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Islander peoples’. Go and read the lunacy spewed out by the High Court in the 2020 Love case, Chris. This same court (as happened in Canada after its constitution was amended in 1982) has every chance of becoming incredibly activist. ‘May make representations’ will be transmogrified into a constitutional right to be consulted. ‘Matters that relate to Aboriginals’ will be deemed to be, well, everything. The Voice body is designed to be political and, boy, will it be.  Rent-seeking will happen. To think this will lead to unity and reconciliation is naivety on steroids.

Just cast an eye across the Tasman. We’re looking at activist judges. At a parliament that will, in practice, cave in to the Voice virtually always. At sclerotic law-making in future. Meanwhile activists will almost certainly take over this body, taking left-wing positions on virtually everything. (Do you think Labor and Albanese don’t know that?) Oh, and there’ll be group rights that treat some Australians differently than others. And all for what? Symbolism! That’s the only benefit anyone can point to as we already have untold numbers of statutory bodies for Aborigines (including an advisory council, myriad land councils, countless Aboriginal corporations, etc.).

Of course Mr Dutton needs to come out hard against the Voice. Otherwise the Liberal party will have sold out its founding principles and the party may well split. You can tell being against the Voice is a vote winner because Mr Albanese is doing everything he can to stop Mr Dutton going down that road – namely the path of standing up for mainstream values and principles. Prime Minister Albanese prefers the Photios option.

Go figure!