The battle for the poison chalice comes to a head today. At the moment, it’s between yet another ‘moderate’ wet, Sussan Ley, and a sort-of-conservative, Angus Taylor. With wetter-than-a-damp-lettuce-leaf Tim Wilson belatedly hinting he’ll throw his hat in the ring.
If Taylor is smart, he’ll let Ley or Wilson take the job – and take the political hiding from the triumphant Labor government for the next six–18 months. Give the wets enough rope to hang themselves while rebuilding an actually centre-right conservative base and challenge in time to take a credible opposition to the next election.
Which is not as far-fetched a proposition as it may seem. Sure, it would require the Libs to gain 40-odd seats: which is just what happened in 1949, with their Country (now National) Party coalition partners gaining another eight. In 2004, John Howard turned widely assumed defeat into a smashing victory, controlling both houses of the parliament (another exceedingly rare occurrence).
In 2007, Howard was gone, smashed into oblivion by Australia’s most popular-ever PM, Kevin Rudd. Yes, Kevin Rudd was once actually more popular than Jacinda Ardern – and look how both turned out.
Ultimately, the biggest mistake the Liberals could make is thinking that, just because lettuce-leaf Wilson managed to steam the knickers of the Doctor’s Wives in Goldstein – as well as capitalise on the backlash from the seat’s Jewish voters over the left’s coddling of anti-Semitism – that getting even wetter than the teals is a roadmap to victory. Put simply: what plays well to the Old Money virtue-signallers of Toorak who can afford boutique issues like ‘climate change’ isn’t going to win hearts and minds in the vast swathes of mortgage belt seats.
Which is exactly what the so-called ‘moderates’ are taking away from it.
Liberal senator Dave Sharma says the next leader of the party must realise “we can’t ignore the cities” after the last two elections delivered a one-two punch on the Liberal Party in metropolitan areas.
The election drubbing last week saw the Liberal Party further pushed out of urbanised electorates after it already suffered the 2022 “teal wave” in many of its previously blue-ribbon strongholds.
“We can’t ignore the cities, the cities and their suburbs if we’re to be a competitive political force and recognises that we have a different constituency to the National Party and we need to be working to attract that constituency,” Senator Sharma told Sky News.
It’s not “the cities and their suburbs”, you silver-tailed gronk. It’s the cities or their suburbs. The divide between the rich, left-leaning inner cities and the hardscrabble suburbs has rarely been starker. The reason the coalition lost in the suburbs is a completely different beast to losing the teals in the inner-cities.
They lost the teals because they weren’t climate-deranged enough. They lost the suburbs because they were too climate deranged. They’ve got a harsh lesson in trying to walk a barbed-wire fence with a foot in each paddock.
After criticism of the coalition’s net zero target by Nationals leadership aspirant Matt Canavan, Senator Sharma said the Liberals would likely not abandon the policy.
More fool them. As power prices continue to skyrocket and blackouts start rolling out, all due to ‘Net Zero’, even the most obtuse suburban voter is going to start realising why they can’t pay their electricity bill. The wealthy in the teal seats won’t even notice.
In the end, there’s maybe half-a-dozen teal seats. There’s around a hundred in the suburbs.
Do the maths.
Certainly, the some in the Liberal’s coalition partners are working it out.
Nationals senator Matt Canavan says he is challenging for the leadership of the party because the party needs “a shake” and that voters deserve a “choice”.
Senator Canavan unleashed on the Coalition’s “whole net zero agenda”, saying it was “tying down this nation” and that Australia was too “laid-back” and needed revival […]
“I think this whole net zero agenda is tying this nation down, costing us a fortune on the government’s own fees will cost $9 trillion over the next few decades.
“It’s time for a different approach.”
At the same time, despite their thumping victory, Labor is riven with problems of its own. Anthony Albanese’s left faction goons are getting carried away with themselves. Senior right faction MPs have been summarily arseholed out of their ministries. So has Albanese’s bitter rival, Tanya Plibersek. A hubristic Labor may well have been given enough rope to repeat the fatal mistakes of 2007–10, when Rudd and Gillard took turns knifing each other in the back.
As for the media’s chattering about the ‘yoof’ vote, Labor have far from got that one sewn up, as even their elder statesmen are warning.
ALP president Wayne Swan has revealed the party’s “ageing” membership has failed to keep up with population growth over the past decade, warning that Labor’s long-term primary vote would decline further in working-class communities unless the trend were reversed.
In a post-election reality check on the health of Labor at a grassroots level, the former treasurer in the Rudd and Gillard governments said “our membership is ageing and has remained largely static since 2014, despite strong population growth”.
Forget all the chatter about the Rise of the Millennials: Labor are the Boomer party. 2025 may well prove to be their last high-water mark before the whole sandcastle starts to collapse.
Stop Press
Canavan’s challenge to David Littleproud for the Nationals’ leadership has been unsuccessful.
Update
Sussan Ley has won the leadership challenge, becoming the Liberals' first woman leader. Forgive me for suspecting that, like Joan Kirner and Jacinta Allan in Victoria, Ley has been let have the poison chalice and take the belting of the first thankless year or so opposition.
