The Liberal Party horrific result is of its own making, and the road back won’t be pretty
The Parliamentary Liberal Party has become a cult.
Most of its surviving members will tell you the contemporary Liberal philosophy is appealing to voters, it’s just that it hasn’t been communicated well.
Such is the zealotry within the Parliamentary Liberal Party’s hard right that it will brook no criticism of its philosophy.
It’s difficult to see how the Liberal Party will be reformed from within to better reflect voters’ views since, over two federal elections, the Liberal right has sacrificed the moderates on the altar of righteousness.
Labor, the Greens and the Teal wave took out several Liberal moderates at the 2022 election, including their leader, Josh Frydenberg.
Ahead of the 2025 election, Simon Birmingham and Paul Fletcher departed voluntarily. Fletcher’s seat of Bradfield has been won by Nicolette Boele, another Teal.
On Saturday, David Coleman lost his Sydney seat of Banks, Ross Vasta lost the Brisbane seat of Bonner, retiring Liberal moderate, Warren Entsch, will be replaced in Leichhardt by Labor’s Matt Smith, Bridget Archer – a prominent Liberal moderate – lost in a landslide to Labor’s Jess Teasdale, and several other moderate Liberal MPs followed them out the door.
Liberal Party branch members are dominated by Baby Boomers, who are still arguing about whether human-induced climate change is real, while Millennials and Gen Zers simply accept it as fact.
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During the campaign, in one of the debates with Anthony Albanese, Peter Dutton was asked whether he believed in the science of climate change. He replied: “I don’t know. I’m not a scientist.”
In that statement, Dutton alienated millions of young voters.
And by refusing to recommit to Australia’s 43 per cent emission-reduction pledge, Dutton effectively promised to take Australia out of the Paris Agreement since, having made a commitment, a country cannot go backwards.
Young people knew too that the Liberals’ policy to go nuclear was nothing but a ruse to keep coal-fired power stations running indefinitely.
Changing voters
Australia has changed profoundly since the early 1980s. Just before the Hawke government was elected, only 36 per cent of schoolchildren went on to Year 12. It’s now 80 per cent. And 62 per cent of university graduates are women.
Long gone are the days when the ‘missus’ stayed home looking after the kids while hubby did the breadwinning.
Yet the Liberal Party sent a message to Australia’s women that they would be prohibited from working from home.
The other big change has been multiculturalism.
Australia now has the highest proportion of citizens born overseas than at any time since 1891. In response to the anti-China rhetoric of the Morrison government, Australian Chinese voters shifted decisively to Labor at the 2022 election, the Liberals losing seats such as Chisholm, Reid, Bennelong and Tangney.
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Liberal hopes of regaining some of those seats were dashed by their claim that Chinese spies were handing out how-to-vote cards for Labor’s Clare O’Neil.
Not only did the Liberal Party fail to retake any of those seats, which swung strongly to Labor again, but a leading Liberal moderate and prospective Liberal leader, Keith Wolahan lost his Melbourne seat of Menzies, home to a large Australian Chinese community.
If the contemporary Parliamentary Liberal Party, minus its moderate wing, is indifferent to climate change and multiculturalism, surely it would at least parade its reputation as the party of low taxes?
Yet the last parliamentary act of Liberal MPs before the calling of the 2025 election was to vote against Labor’s modest tax-cut legislation. Just as it voted against the revamped Stage 3 tax cuts that were changed to benefit lower- and middle-income earners.
Culture wars
Moderate Liberals have told me of their horror when, visiting parliamentary colleagues in the evenings during sitting weeks, they found them watching Sky After Dark.
It is here, and in News Corp newspapers, where the conservative sermons are delivered.
The Liberal right is desperately keen to continue the culture wars, running around shouting “Woke! Woke! Woke!” as if this is the worst insult you could ever throw at a Labor MP.
Anthony Albanese couldn’t care less about these provocations. He’d rather leave it to the Greens to fight culture wars with the Liberals.
Much will be revealed about the likely future direction of the Liberal Party by the composition of its election review team. If it is weighted towards the religious right, then its fate will be sealed.
Yet none of this should give Labor any reason for complacency. The Liberal Party will be back, in one form or another, sooner or later.
But if its religious right wing retains control over the party in states such as South Australia and Western Australia, and continues its fights against the remaining moderates in Victoria and NSW, it might take some time.
Craig Emerson is the managing director of Emerson Economics Pty Ltd. He is an adjunct professor at Victoria University’s Centre of Policy Studies and a visiting fellow at the Australian National University. He was a federal minister from 2007 to 2013.
