Peta Credlin: Liberals need to get back to being true conservatives
If the Liberals have learned anything from recent state and federal elections it is that they need to stand for the principles that once defined Australia’s true conservative party, writes Peta Credlin.
Opinion
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A week after the NSW election, where the Liberal Party ebbed out of office, and now after losing the Aston by-election in Victoria, what’s clear is that the centre-right side of politics is not inspiring much enthusiasm.
But is this because the Liberal-National partnership is too conservative or is it because it’s not conservative enough?
And what does it mean to be “conservative” today?
Listening to self-declared “modern Liberals” like Senator Andrew Bragg in the federal parliament and ex-minister Natalie Ward in the NSW parliament, the problem is that the Liberals don’t have enough women, didn’t do enough on climate, aren’t sufficiently on board with LGBTI rights and should just get on board with divisive moves like the Voice.
All this, it’s claimed, makes them out of touch with the millennial and Gen X voters who are driving the electorate to the left.
But hang on, it was the Perrottet government that first permanently flew the Indigenous flag, co-equally with the national flag, on Sydney Harbour Bridge; that almost immediately supported the Voice, without any detail; that had a climate policy (70 per cent emissions reduction by 2035) more extreme than federal Labor; that had a worse budget forecast than state Labor; and had endorsed an independent’s bill against so-called conversion therapy.
What’s more, in the run-up to the state election, by leadership fiat and without a normal pre-selection, the Libs had disendorsed three sitting upper house MPs and replaced them with three women.
How much more climate, female, Indigenous and LGBTI-friendly could a political movement get, short of sacking the premier for a local version of Greta Thunberg?
In Victoria late last year, a Labor-lite Liberal opposition badly lost to an eight-year-old Labor government that had imposed the world’s longest lockdowns and was mired in corruption scandals.
Also last year, a first term South Australian Labor-lite Liberal government lost despite a strong left-leaning agenda.
And previously, the WA Liberal opposition had been all but wiped out after out-greening everyone with a commitment to close coal-fired power stations within four years.
Rather than baseless analysis from a pro-left media, look at that scoreboard – WA, SA, Victoria and now NSW proving that, as my former boss said on my Sky show last Monday, the consistent lesson of recent elections is the four Ls rule: that “Labor-lite Liberals lose”.
As well, the Morrison government was swept from office last year despite record spending during the pandemic, full support for state government lockdowns, a commitment to net zero and no policy that could reasonably be described as “conservative” other than AUKUS (which was almost immediately me-too-ed by Albanese Labor).
By contrast, if you look at the defining issue of climate policy alone, in every recent federal election where climate change was an issue between the big parties (2010, 2013 and 2019), the Coalition did well by promoting policies where emissions reductions are done in a way that doesn’t ruin us economically.
It was in 2007 where both sides more-or-less supported an emissions trading scheme, 2016, when Malcolm Turnbull didn’t make an issue of climate change and 2022 when both sides were committed to net zero, that the Coalition went backwards.
As Tony Abbott observed as he left the parliament in 2019, when climate change is a moral issue, the Coalition loses, but when it’s an economic issue, the Coalition wins, regardless of the result in any particular seat. Yes, we should act, but sensibly and in line with our values.
Sure, the Labor-lite Liberals in Victoria last year and NSW last weekend largely protected posh seats from Teal challengers, but at the expense of losing the outer suburban seats that cost them government.
Now that the relevant legislation is in the parliament it’s time for Peter Dutton and all Liberals to oppose Labor’s indigenous Voice. And not oppose it weakly, but oppose it as racist and divisive with every breath in their collective bodies.
That’s what Australia’s human rights commissioner Lorraine Finlay declared last week, saying the Voice “inserts race into the Australian constitution in a way that undermines the foundational human rights principles of equality and non-discrimination.”
Do that and get into the ring on the woke agenda that’s destroying the freedom, common sense and unity we once used to take for granted.
On climate, if the Liberals are to remain wedded to net zero, they must commit to ending the ban on nuclear power because it’s the only way to deliver it while keeping the lights on.
And in the meantime, they can’t allow the demonisation of coal or gas until there’s a clear 24/7 alternative power source.
Even though the result of the Aston by-election has taken some bark off Dutton, the right lesson is not to keep sitting on the fence on key issues, but to take a stand.
DAMAGING CLIMATE POLICIES LEND A HAND TO CHINA’S AMBITIONS
The wider world has finally started to notice Beijing’s coercion against Australia.
In a landmark speech, the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has said that “Chinese economic coercion of smaller states, including Australia … were examples of why Europe needed to change its dealing strategy in line with allies more advanced in countering China”. Because, she said, “the CCP’s clear goal is a systemic change of the international order, with China at its centre”. China, she said, “has now turned the page on the era of ‘reform and opening’ and is moving into a new era of security and control”.
A recent report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute noted that “19 countries and the European Union have been targeted with coercive tactics by China since 2020” and that, of them all, “Australia was subjected to the most actions. Twenty-one cases against Australia were recorded”, the report noted, “accounting for 30 per cent”.
So that’s the bad news. The good news, says the report, is that this “comprehensive campaign … was not successful in changing Australia’s policy, instead demonstrating the target’s resilience and resolve”.
Beijing’s threats of economic harm shouldn’t be what worries us. Our exports to China actually increased in 2021, despite some $20bn in trade boycotts, and, while dropping back a bit last year, two-way trade is still around $200bn per annum.
The main danger to our prosperity is actually self-inflicted damage driven by our own climate policies.
Last week, the head of the giant Japanese gas importer, Inpex, that has invested $60bn in developing gas fields off Darwin, warned that Albanese government policy, such as the domestic gas reservation, the recent price controls on gas and especially the “net zero” requirement for all new gas fields, amounted to a “quiet quitting” of the gas business with “potentially very sinister consequences”.
His blunt message is that there’s little point building up our armed forces through measures such as AUKUS if we’re simultaneously weakening our economy and risking the energy security of our friends and allies, like Japan, by Australia trying to save the planet all by ourselves.
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