Whoops! There goes another one…

South Australia’s state Liberal leader has stepped down after the rumblings of irreconcilable division set in and some embarrassing interview gaffes turned the party into a joke.

‘There’s a reason why they say it is the worst job in politics…’ said Mr Tarzia. ‘It’s been a very challenging and demanding role.’

That makes three Liberal leaders in under a month, as South Australia joins New South Wales and Victoria in the leadership deck-chair-shuffle. Well, four if you count Western Australia’s Libby Mettam but there are so few MPs left in Western Australia the Liberals represent barely more than an accounting error.

For South Australia, the situation is more serious. The state election is looming three months away with most of that time lost to Christmas holidays.

A statement from the South Australian Liberal Party read:

South Australian Liberal Vincent Tarzia today announced he will step down from the leadership to focus on his young family and his local community taking effect at 5pm today.

Mr Tarzia said the decision was made after careful reflection on the balance between leading the party, serving the people of Hartley, and being present for his young children … with his wife Charissa during these formative years.

Family reasons… For some reason my autocorrect kept changing that to ‘factional war games’.

When Mr Tarzia’s predecessor, David Speirs, stepped down, he said in a press conference:

‘The party has got particular challenges associated with it being a grassroots, membership-based organisation. The party has got different groupings within it … one of my strengths, one of my offerings, was that I wasn’t part of those groupings.’

Finishing with, ‘I’ve just had a gutful.’

It was then that Mr Tarzia replaced his ‘warrior friend’ with a plan to bring a ‘bold set of alternative policies to win the hearts and minds of South Australians’.

As is the case in Victoria, this should not be hard considering the undemocratic decisions being made by Labor surrounding things such as Treaty, truth-telling, and proposals for parallel race-based governance.

‘There are going to be clear lines in the sand, some battlelines…’ said Tarzia, while promising ‘civilised leadership’.

‘They are our adversaries, they are not our enemies.’

This attitude is probably why so many state Liberal oppositions resemble yapping chihuahuas instead of Belgian Malinois on a military operation.

A scroll through Mr Tarzia’s social media reveals a polished, friendly, safe set of policies which posed little threat to Labor. From Save our Seas (including the shellfish reefs and addressing the algal bloom) to phasing out Stamp duty by … 2041. They are good ideas executed too softly.

On the most important question, that is putting a stop to Labor’s appalling decision to persist with a Voice-like set of policies after being told not to via referendum, Mr Tarzia proposed repealing the legislation (good), and replacing it with an advisory body called the Aboriginal Representative Body (sigh).

Then, when challenged by the press, he performed a weird routine containing backflips, contortions, retractions, edits, and amendments until no one could say for sure what the Liberal policy was … including Mr Tarzia.

Three days before his resignation from the leadership, The Australian ran a curious story titled, Internal warfare: SA Liberals split over plan to axe state voice. It is here, apparently, that the factional warlords picked up their spears. The article says:

…it has now emerged that the Aboriginal Representative Body would exist in addition to the Voice and that the South Australian Liberals do not have a policy of scrapping the existing arrangement, but possibly adding to it.

It goes on:

…the future of the Voice has not been discussed formally by the SA Liberal party room despite the fact that it is hugely unpopular with many voters and the state election is less than four months away. It is now clear that while every SA Liberal conservative wants to promise that the Voice will be axed, many party moderates – and also apparently Mr Tarzia – are worried that a clear promise to abolish the Voice will cost the party in middle-class suburbs.

Is anyone else bored of this Liberal Party identity crisis? Oh, let’s embrace immoral race politics because it might win us a few Teal seats! If the Liberal Party is going to sit around and MeToo the Greens, why bother contesting the election?

The full saga is nauseating, but you can read it over here if you enjoy that sort of self-inflicted punishment on a Friday night.

In response to the ordeal, one unidentified MP said to The Australian, ‘I would have been laughing listening to those interviews [on the Voice] if I wasn’t so f-ing angry.’

‘Vincent and Josh [Teague, Indigenous Affairs Spokesman] have stuffed the whole thing up. It’s a no-brainer, the ‘No’ results here in the referendum were the highest in the land, and this just makes us look like we have got no idea because we are too afraid to take a stand,’ said another.

Three days after it was reported there would be no challenge, he stepped down saying, ‘Whilst it has been a sad moment to move on from this role, I’m very calm and I want to make sure that I help and support the next leader of the Liberal Party going forward. I look forward to continuing to represent the electorate of Hartley and I wish my party colleagues and supporters all the best.’

It is an abrupt end for a politician who boasted a ‘long-term vision’.

As for his replacement, so far the main bet sits with Ashton Hurn, another first-term MP serving as the Shadow Health spokesperson.

No doubt plenty of people will point out that the party is set to choose another first-term young woman to lead, but the real question is which faction Ms Hurn is from and whether or not she can recover from the ideological stumbling blocks tripping over experienced MPs.