In The Australian Financial Review last week, former senator Amanda Stoker argued the case for the Coalition going further to the right. But her appeals to return to the Liberal “base” are misplaced and redundant in Australian politics. The true source of electoral success in Australia remains listening to the broader electorate, not narrow party interests. Australia needs to look no further than the United States.

After Mitt Romney’s failed 2012 presidential bid, the Republican Party faced a binary question: stick with the establishment’s broadening agenda to appeal to more Americans, or respond to its then-seen far-right “tea party’s” more extremist demands. Donald Trump answered that question for them.