Presciently, Mum was wont to remind me that the world’s worst wreck is a broken marriage. Could the aphorism even approach a description of the current state of the once-great Liberal Party?
Whyever not, for how can a political comity exist when those on the far-left describe the action of aborting a child after 20 weeks as ‘reproductive rights’, echoing the extreme-left of America’s Democrat Party? And how can most of the Shadow Cabinet inhale the vanity that imagines man capable of altering the climate, or as pre-Carrie, Boris Johnson wrote, controlling that great thermo-nuclear ball, the sun?
There are outlier positions on matters of fundamental principle that sit so far to the left of traditional Liberal Party values that to accommodate them in a ‘broad church’ is akin to saying there is room for atheists in the Baptist confession. A political party so riven by division containing a considerable core of ‘Labor-lite’ can never unite as one. The marriage analogy is apposite since every marriage contains disagreement and compromise, the latter born from one spouse’s love for the other. But when disagreements become irreconcilable, hatreds are begotten.
When the New South Wales and South Australian branches defied the federal decision to invoke a wishy-washy sidelining of ‘Net Zero’, and when ordinary party members voted for its abolition only to be told by the big boys and girls at head office to mind their own business, we see the quintessential marital breakdown. It is the disintegration of the broad church into something protecting the privileged status quo. And that explains why scratching a local Liberal branch together, let alone maintaining a quorum for monthly meetings, is the equivalent of panning for flecks of gold in a salt mine.
Painful to see are the commentators and former senior members of Parliament who, more out of a sense of nostalgia than loyalty given with what they have been visited by the current elite, cling to a tarnished party failing to recognise that its very name guides the polling pencil of ordinary members not so niched by parliamentary history yet certainly by service on election day coalfaces over many years.
It’s the height of arrogance for the Turnbullian acolytes controlling the Liberal Party’s direction these days, presuming those despairing of its stand-for-nothing positioning will fall into line and favourably direct preferences despite being tagged as a redneck rump. Conservatives desperate to end Labor/Green madness are putting the Liberals last as being the only recourse to ridding the parliamentary wing of those who prefer to serve themselves than the principles under which they were elected.
The slow death of the Liberal Party remains a more unedifying spectacle on account of its demise eluding the intellects of those knighted to be its primary servants. Lessons remain unlearned since nothing is learned through frosted lenses. Take the last two Queensland elections. Labor, on the ropes, won in 2020 because under Deb Frecklington the Opposition became a pale shadow of Labor. Whatever Covid over-reach the oleaginous Steven Miles undertook, she followed suit and followers are destined to lose. In 2024, David Crisafulli, plunged from an unassailable lead, aping every Miles profligacy along the way to stagger over the line, then promptly kept the Labor super mining royalties on coal, the world’s highest, 50 cent rail fares, and, adding unprecedented outrage to democracy and decency, shut down any motion questioning abortion up to birth.
When in government, Labor makes fresh inroads into the rights of the individual, once the sole preserve of conservatives. They trample on private ownership becoming de facto landlords of investment properties retarding economic development and locking in tenants as surefire supporters. They subsidise wages and conditions in vital areas, then dare the Opposition to let the market operate. They increase the public service and create illiberal expectations that a government can and should fix everything then when things get worse dare the Opposition to cut back and frighten the populace of dire consequences in the event of a change in government.
The inevitable outcome is that the Liberals falter and promise the impossible such that our liberties and freedoms get more compromised. The end game is doom for our country, but Labor doesn’t give a continental since there is no greater elixir than the intoxication of power.
It was played out in May. Peter Dutton, having the game all but sewn up at Christmas 2024, fell into the widest political hole ever dug and then made matters worse, no doubt urged on by pimply-faced advisers, by accepting their offer of an excavator to dig it real deep. In retrospect, the writing was on the wall when the Liberal elites initially supported the Voice, Dutton dithering and vacillating until the Nationals stepped in.
With the annus horribilis of 2025 extending its reach into next year, Sussan Ley is floundering out of her depth and will do so until another patsy can be requisitioned and fed to the lions. The Liberals may fall over the line if things turn deep south but they will never control the Senate, so they lose anyway. Their brand is beyond redemption and the best advice one can give to Andrew Hastie is to hold off while marshalling the forces of conservatism staring down the ‘far-right’ naysayers, do a Menzies and emerge re-badged, re-named and re-vitalised.
Party over and last of the ‘progressive’ guests moved on.
