Where have all the liberal Libs gone? This is Dutton’s cue to learn from Howard

The surprise announcement last week by Paul Fletcher, the shadow minister for communications, that he would not contest the next election, coming hard on the heels of the equally surprising similar announcement just two weeks earlier by shadow foreign affairs minister Simon Birmingham, deprives the Coalition front bench of two of its most senior liberal voices.

Last year, another senior frontbencher, Julian Leeser, resigned as shadow attorney-general because he could not support the opposition’s position on the Voice. When he reshuffled his front bench in March, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton chose not to reinclude Leeser, although his front bench performance had been impeccable, the reasons for his resignation principled, and his conduct uncriticisably loyal.

John Howard (centre) understood the need for a Liberal “broad church”. Departing, departed and sidelined liberals of the party: Simon Birmingham and Paul Fletcher (left); Julie Bishop, Christopher Pyne and Julian Leeser.Credit: Graphic: Aresna Villaneuva

Fletcher, Birmingham and Leeser have a lot in common. All three are, in political terms, relatively young. All were on the upward trajectory of parliamentary careers that had already marked them as people of distinction. Although both Fletcher and Birmingham had held ministerial rank in the Turnbull and Morrison governments, in future Coalition governments they would have held higher office still. Leeser’s career is still (hopefully) in its relatively early days; it is hard to overlook someone of such exceptional talent.

All three are from the moderate wing of the Liberal Party; their absence weakens yet further that strand of opinion within the party.

“Moderate” is the term often used to describe those Liberals who subscribe to the classical English liberal tradition that Robert Menzies built into the party’s DNA. The party’s conservative element calls itself “the National Right”.

John Howard borrowed from ecclesiastical politics to give the different strands of opinion within the Liberal Party a formula most people could live with: the Liberal Party was, said Howard, a “broad church”, which was “the custodian of both the conservative tradition of Edmund Burke and the liberal tradition of John Stuart Mill”.

Howard was the first Liberal prime minister actually to describe himself as a conservative. Menzies never did. Neither did Harold Holt, John Gorton, nor Malcolm Fraser. Tony Abbott, although undoubtedly more conservative than Howard, nevertheless followed his wise example of balancing right-wing elements of his cabinet with mainstream liberals such as Julie Bishop, Christopher Pyne and me.

Malcolm Turnbull, a self-described “small-l” liberal, tried the opposite, empowering hard-right cabinet ministers, who, predictably, betrayed him. (Mathias Cormann’s pose as the reluctant assassin – an honourable Brutus, not a scheming Cassius – does not withstand scrutiny.)

Of the other two Liberal PMs, neither William McMahon nor Scott Morrison was much given to philosophical reflection, although it is interesting to note that a revisionist school has emerged which appreciates how important was the much-derided McMahon as the proto-economic liberal: the first minister to challenge the protectionism so stoutly defended by the Country Party.

The classification of the broad schools of thought in the Liberal Party into “conservative” and “liberal” has increasingly become obsolete with the rise, on the far right of politics, of a resentment-fuelled radical populism, which bears as little relationship to conservatism as it does to liberalism.

The wise, worldly philosophy articulated so elegantly by Edmund Burke admires both traditional institutions, and the way they evolve by peaceful, incremental change. It despises the doctrinaire, the ideological and the extreme, it defends time-honoured constitutional principles and it fears nothing more than demagogues whose political art is to whip up the angry fervour of the mob.

Classical liberals have long had much in common with Burkean conservatives. In the 21st century, they have become increasingly convergent in the face of the resurgent radical right, which poses a common threat to their different philosophies. The new right, supercharged by the success of Donald Trump, has never been the friend of liberalism; equally, it is the very antithesis of conservatism.

Major political parties are always coalitions of different interests and values. For the Liberal Party, reflecting the personal philosophy of its founder, liberalism (in the classical 19th century English sense of that much-misused word), has always been the dominant motif. Menzies’ choice of name for his great creation was no accident.

That liberal tradition has often contended with more conservative voices. Although sometimes in tension, they have much more often been in harmony. The rise of anti-conservative, anti-liberal radical populism – what former senator Scott Ryan once brilliantly described as “right-wing postmodernism” – introduces a new dimension which tests the limits of Howard’s “broad church” metaphor.

It also reminds us of how important to the success of the Liberal Party has been its identification with the liberal tradition. Whether its adherents are described as “moderates”, “classical liberals”, “modern Liberals” or “Menzian Liberals”, the influence of those political values has always been the vital ingredient keeping the Liberal Party in touch with mainstream Australia. With the departure of Fletcher and Birmingham, it is significantly weakened in the senior echelons of the party.

In coming days, Dutton will announce a reshuffle of his front bench. He has always been part of the Liberal Party’s right wing. So was Howard. But Howard also firmly believed that the Liberal Party was strongest when it was equally hospitable to liberals and conservatives alike. He understood that political success is about addition, not subtraction; that the Liberal Party is most successful when it builds a broad coalition – enlarging, not narrowing, the constituencies to which it appeals.

Dutton has achieved much from Howard’s patronage. The decisions he makes in coming days will reveal how much he has learnt from Howard’s wisdom.

George Brandis is a former high commissioner to the UK and a former Liberal senator and federal attorney-general. He is a professor at ANU.

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