‘Change or die’: Liberal Party vice president Fiona Scott’s message to the party
After a catastrophic failure at the federal polls, the Liberal party needs to change or die, writes the party’s vice president Fiona Scott.
Opinion
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Crushing defeats don’t happen overnight. They build. They fester. And if ignored, they don’t just bruise — they break.
For the Liberal Party, the 2025 federal election was more than a loss.
It was an ultimatum: change or die.
In record numbers, Australians walked the gauntlet of political apparatchiks at polling booths, each one jostling to shove a how-to-vote card into their hands.
Voters moved past us — stoic, polite, detached.
A tight smile here, a glance to the ground there.
They didn’t want to vote Labor, but they sure as hell weren’t voting for us.
They disliked the process. They disliked the policies. They disliked even being there.
This wasn’t a protest vote.
It was a quiet exodus.
And it wasn’t rage, it was worse — it was disappointment.
A quiet, painful goodbye, a national “get out of my face.”
Now is not the time for scapegoats or a sacking spree.
We are the party of personal responsibility, and every one of us must own this result.
It was earned.
Time to get back to basics — and to the truth.
Australians think we are mean. There it is. Said plainly.
You don’t win elections by threatening to sack the bloke next door or drag public servants back into the city.
You win by showing how you’re going to make life better.
Instead, we offered a temporary fuel discount and a handful of ideological stunts.
That’s not leadership. That’s patchwork politics.
We launched a MAGA-inspired slogan, “Get Australia Back on Track,” and then insisted we weren’t borrowing from Trump.
Australians weren’t convinced.
We didn’t offer a vision, we didn’t offer hope and that’s the real tragedy.
Because we know better. We’ve done better.
I’ve sat through more party meetings than I care to count, listening to tributes to Menzies and the “forgotten people.”
Great lines. Great legacy. But when do we stop reciting them and start living them again?
Our unapologetic belief in freedom, personal autonomy, and the dignity of every Australian’s individual choices is a promise only the Liberal Party can truly offer — and one Labor never will.
Too often, we forget who we are and where we come from.
Few remember — or celebrate — that when Robert Menzies founded the Liberal Party, he did so by merging with the Australian Women’s National League, proud custodians of the suffragette movement in this country.
We led with purpose and reshaped a nation.
We delivered landmark social reforms — introducing the Pensioner Medical and Free Medicines Service, ensuring free healthcare for pensioners and their families.
We tore down barriers, dismantled the White Australia policy through courageous reforms to the Migration Act, and opened Australia to the world.
We made history by when Dame Enid Lyons became the first woman in parliament and Cabinet, a fearless pioneer and enduring symbol of progress.
This is our legacy: bold reform, enduring values, and a future built on equality, compassion, and courage.
So why have we ceded this ground? Why have we forgotten who we are?
It is time to remember what we stand for.
It is time to reclaim the spirit of “We Believe.”
To honour our past, and to lead once again.
In 2013, we ran on three words: Hope. Reward. Opportunity.
They weren’t slogans — they were values.
Principles lifted straight from our party platform and we backed them with a plan that made sense to Australians.
Where is that now? Where is the policy framework rooted in values Australians can actually see in action — freedom of thought, worship, speech, association and choice; a tolerant, compassionate society; equal opportunity for all?
Right now, most Australians wouldn’t associate those values with our party and that should make every one of us stop and think.
We claim to be the party of aspiration, choice, and free enterprise.
So why are were trying to be something we are not?
The warning signs were everywhere.
Candidates and communities, especially women and multicultural Australians and our youth — were telling us something wasn’t right.
But too often, it was dismissed as factional noise.
We relied on polling from insiders in cubicles instead of listening to feedback from our people on the ground.
We lost because we stopped listening to what the Australian people were saying.
This time, the cost was even greater.
And still — there is a beating heart in the Liberal Party.
I saw it. Thousands of volunteers, staff and candidates gave everything to this campaign.
They deserve better than blame. They deserve honesty. They deserve change.
So let’s put it all on the table.
How policy is developed. How we treat one another. How we engage with the Australian people.
How we modernise our platform for the future. How we audit our data, our feedback systems, our campaigns — and yes, our polling.
The Australian people haven’t slammed the door on us.
They’ve left it slightly ajar. It is up to us to take up the challenge and walk through it.
We either regroup, reform and reconnect with modern Australia — Or the Liberal Party dies.
Fiona Scott is the Federal Vice President of the Liberal Party and the Former Member of Lindsay in Western Sydney.
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