Labor was declared the winner of the South Australian state election before the first vote was cast. Victory was confirmed a few hours later with what looks to be a significant swing of approval for Peter Malinauskas.
At the time of writing, the outrageously high polls for One Nation appear to be … real. The ABC election screen has them at 21 per cent and the Liberal Party at 18.8 per cent on first preferences at a 23.1 per cent count.
Will One Nation win any Lower House seats? Probably not. Maybe one. But that is to be expected in the first election cycle of a rising party. It normally takes two goes to demolish the old party and replace it. Reform showed us this. Upper House? I think we can assume Cory Bernardi is back and he’ll be bringing one or two mates with him.
As the results stand, One Nation is cannibalising the Liberals, stealing several points off Labor (which is scary for the Left), and consolidating the micro right parties on the right (which is a good sign for the future health of a new conservative bloc).
This is a catastrophe for the Liberals for which Angus Taylor is not to blame.
State Liberal parties in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and (until recently) Western Australia have prioritised the ‘Ley’ model. That is a ‘nice’ inoffensive centrist woman pitched at the Teal voters and the ‘modern’ electorate.
No one is saying conservatives won’t vote for a woman. After all, the Liberals are being wiped out by Pauline Hanson and still go weak at the knees for the ghost of Margaret Thatcher.
It’s the type of woman that matters.
Teals like their women rich and dripping in an environmental saviour complex. Bonus points if they sound like a private school teacher delivering a lecture on political correctness.
Conservatives prefer their women scary as shit. They want them to casually break balls, injure the egos of Labor unionists, and ruthlessly subvert the gender privilege of the Teals. These voters want warriors, not appeasers. In Pauline Hanson, they do not see a fish and chip shop owner, they see a woman who routinely throws creatures into hot oil and serves their corpses up to the highest bidder.
Nothing about any of the Liberal women currently standing for state leadership screams dangerous.
And that has been by design.
They are not going to give answers on Sky News Australia that make the party elite reach for their pearls.
These leaders are meticulously controlled by the party machine as if they had been printed alongside the How-To-Vote-Cards.
Conservative politics doesn’t need ‘polish’ – it’s already got too many slippery characters. It needs grit. It needs a personality.
One Nation isn’t taking votes off the Coalition because it has better policies (even though it does) or because Pauline Hanson watches her words. The people are voting orange to send a giant F-U to the establishment because they are tired of having nation-changing decisions made without their consent.
Conservatives want a voice.
Why would they choose a whisper?
