Table of Contents
Here we go again. For the second time since the election, the Nationals are splitting from the coalition. They really mean it, this time. True dinks.
Except…
Nationals Leader David Littleproud says that some time apart from the Liberal Party “is probably a good thing”, laying blame for the implosion of the coalition at the feet of Opposition Leader Sussan Ley.
“I think the Liberal Party is still working themselves out, and we’ll let them do that.”
Is it any wonder no one takes these clowns seriously any more? That their poll numbers are at record lows?
Especially when they chose, of all days, the National Day of Mourning for the Bondi victims? It seems all-too-obvious that the Nats are playing the grossest of politics: trying to sneak out their announcement under cover of a big national event and that they’re not really serious, but are trying to influence internal Liberal Party politics.
Sussan Ley’s leadership is deservedly under intense pressure. As a peak ‘moderate’, she represents all that has gone wrong with the party of Howard and Menzies.
The Liberals were always a ‘broad church’ party, incorporating ‘wets’ (the socially progressive, ‘doctor’s wives’ wing, based in the wealthy inner suburbs of Melbourne and Sydney) and the ‘dries’ (hard-headed economic managers like Howard, who were the secret to the party’s success in the vast sprawl of mortgage-belt suburbs). Traditionally, the dries have been the sober, responsible dominant force in the party, with the wets acting as a sop to the consciences of wealthy matrons.
The only problem is that the wets – now calling themselves ‘moderates’ – have seized control of the party. Not just the doctors’ wives, but the lawyers’ husbands as well. As a consequence, the Liberals have become indistinguishable from the Greens. The only real difference is that one wears smarter suits and the other wears keffiyehs.
Is it any wonder no one wants to vote for them? Mortgage-belt families certainly won’t listen to a party that prattles endlessly about boutique lefty causes and the left won’t, either: not when they’ve got the Greens and Labor, who actually mean it. But the ‘moderates’, locked into their, elite, inner-city echo chamber, are convinced that the obsessions of legacy media journalists and idle-rich meddling socialites are the winning issues Australians are salivating to vote for in droves.
Worse, the ‘moderates’ are stuck firmly in the past. They’ve never got over the shock of their one-time blue-ribbon seats in the old money suburbs have defected to the Teals. Unable to grasp that the future of the centre-right is in the mortgage belt, the ‘moderates’ cling to the lunatic delusion that going even further left on climate change and other ‘progressive’ issues is the path back to power.
Even as their vote collapses into irrelevance.
To damn them with faint praise, the rural-based Nationals have been less subject (though not immune) to the poison of lettuce-leaf ‘moderates’ – especially with the growing revolt in rural areas as massive wind and solar projects run roughshod over their communities. Consequently, where the Liberals lost a third of their seats at the last election, the Nats lost just one-tenth.
In that context, the Nationals’ split from the coalition is ostensibly freeing themselves from the albatross of the Liberals. But it’s also clearly an attempt to force the Liberal party room’s hands over Ley’s leadership. Traditional conservatives like Andrew Hastie have bided their time, but their time to strike is approaching. The coalition split may be just the hangman’s noose to sharpen their minds.
At the same time, the Banquo’s ghost at the centre-right table is grinning and shaking its gory locks. Even as the rest of the table pretends not to see it.
A poll showing a surge in support for One Nation had “zero” impact on the Nationals’ decision making, David Littleproud says.
Sure, and the elephant in the corner is growing wings.
