If Coalition ever wants to win again, it must have something to offer ‘normal Australia’

Australians, before they will vote 1 for the Coalition, must trust them to maturely address national problems and offer policies that are prudent, comprehensible and will improve their lives, writes Gray Connolly.

Reading analyses of the Coalition’s electoral defeat, one is reminded of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy who pondered at length Napoleon’s smashing victory at the Battle of Austerlitz in December 1805 over the allied coalition of Austria and Russia.

Tolstoy observed that while any battle should be won by the best army, the allied coalition at Austerlitz had, by poorly informed leadership and confused planning, resigned themselves on the morning of battle to defeat – and so this coalition was destined to lose.

This recent election was an electoral Austerlitz – a catastrophic loss for another coalition that should have been a decisive victory.

The Liberal-National Coalition lost, badly, to an incumbent federal government whose the years in power had left us all poorer, less secure, less optimistic, and, per polling, convinced that the country was on the wrong track. And yet the adage that something – however flawed – will always beat nothing was proved true again.

Ordinary Australians were not offered much of a choice in 2025. Picture: Tim Joy

The Coalition offered ‘Normal Australia’ either nothing – or only offered policies that would make their lives worse. Its only brave and reformist policy – introducing domestic Nuclear power – was never discussed, despite the Nuclear renaissance underway overseas and our inevitably massive future energy demands given AI.

Members of military history clubs dressed as French soldiers fire from a cannon during re-enactment of the Battle of Three Emperors at Tvarozna near Slavkov, formerly Austerlitz, Dec 01, 2007. The Coalition’s rout has been compared to Napoleon’s historic victory in 1805.

If you are in tight of centre politics but cannot explain, clearly, why Australia – with 30% of the world’s uranium – should adopt zero emissions nuclear energy as the complete solution to future energy and climate demands, thus removing any need to subsidise ‘renewables’, then you should find other work.

Similarly, where was the Coalition’s policy to make the states increase housing supply? If I can repeat an observation I have made for years: there is no future for conservative politics if young people have nothing of their own to conserve.

No position more exemplified the Coalition’s lack of basic political instincts than attacking work from home arrangements.

When the attack on WFH first occurred I told every vaguely Coalition adjacent person, including serving MPs, that attacking WFH would lose them the election.

My reasoning – as a Sydney ‘Tealstan’ dweller – is that WFH arrangements are enormously popular, especially for parents of young children, for whom any WFH day means an immediate familial saving of money expended on commuting, tolls, and childcare, as well as the stresses of CBD work.

To not understand WFH’s popularity – particularly in Teal seats like mine – is to not understand the nature of life and work in 2025.

Ironically, for all the talk of Coalition ideology, the attack on WFH came from the Liberal ‘moderate’ or ‘wet’ wing, which has an unrivalled capacity to misread the Australian electorate.

WFH arrangements became a losing battle for the Coalition

Australia’s preferential voting system requires earning first preference votes. Given our system, a clear choice must be offered by the Coalition. Hugging Labor or embracing fringe libertarianism leads only to further disaster for the Coalition.

Australians, before they will vote 1 for the Coalition, must trust them to maturely address national problems and offer policies that are prudent, comprehensible, and, especially, will improve their lives.

In this respect, the post-mortems by NSW’s low energy Liberal luminaries miss the obvious.

Liberal opposition leader Mark Speakman, who has (insanely) positioned his NSW party to the Left of Labor premier Chris Minns on energy issues, and voted with the Greens on abortion, rubbished anyone thinking Australia has only one national flag as engaging in a ‘culture war’.

Speakman’s factional ally, Senator Maria Kovacic, advocated a federal embrace of the renewable energy policies of Matt Kean, last seen working for the federal Labor Government, which have caused our power prices to repeatedly spike.

Unconsciously, both Speakman and Kovacic highlight a chronic problem for Liberals in winning first preference votes: politicians more ideologically suited to the Teals if not Labor, who possess neither political instinct or clear alternative policies.

Anyone thinking this problem is limited to anaemic NSW Liberals should note that even Peter Dutton went catatonic when asked if he would defend the rights of women and girls to their own sex-based associations, sports, and accommodations.

Any political movement populated by so many vacillating and confused plodders will only lose precious first preference votes to Labor.

All this said, the Coalition’s answer is not moving right or left but simply addressing, calmly, the quite obvious problems we already face as a country – and which ‘more of the same’ cannot solve.

Australia is in a national sclerosis of debt, steeply ‘progressive’ taxes deterring investment and work, and slowly eroding household and commercial wealth caused by insanely costly and unreliable green energy policies. Meanwhile, young people delay family formation because they cannot afford housing.

This sclerosis and its causes – just like basic arithmetic, entropy, housing shortages, biological sex, etc – are not ideological issues up for a vote.

After the Allied defeat at Austerlitz came yet more Allied defeats – until Allied Generals accepted that their Armies needed reform if they were to ever defeat Napoleon.

Australia needs Coalition members to learn from their defeats – right now.

Gray Connolly is a Sydney barrister and writer