Malcolm Turnbull sacking: Libs ignore branch members at their peril

CRAWLING out of the woodwork for one night and one night only (for now), former PM Malcolm Turnbull was asked the question no one has been able to answer.

CRAWLING out of the woodwork for one night and one night only (for now), former PM Malcolm Turnbull was asked the question no one has been able to answer.

It came from Q&A audience member Steven, who kicked off proceedings by asking the former PM, “Why aren’t you still prime minister?” It’s the same question journalists and the opposition have been firing off for three months now.

No one, including Turnbull, seems to be able to explain ­exactly why he is gone.

Malcolm Turnbull spent an hour on the ABC’s Q&A program,

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Turnbull maintains that ousting him from office was an act of “madness” given the Coalition was within a winning margin, most importantly in marginal seats. He suggests that perhaps the nine insurgents (who he helpfully named) wanted to lose the election.

Turnbull’s logic is shared by a number of his former colleagues who believe those pushing for a spill were more fearful of serving another term under a moderate leader they despised than losing to Labor.

And they are right.

Don’t believe me? This week, one of the MPs who turned on Turnbull told me he was concerned some of his factional allies were now on track to lose their seats.

The so-called insurgents are now worried some of their faction won’t be around after the next election. The seats of concern aren’t ultra marginal, they are suburban and held by margins of between six to eight per cent. But the hate towards Turnbull was so tribal that they insist knifing the PM was the right thing to do.

Turnbull said more moderate colleagues told him they were being pressured by conservative branch members who wanted him gone.

It’s an irony not lost on those who argued that the ­Coalition would cop a hiding for rolling yet another PM.

It wasn’t just the conservative cultural warriors pushing for Turnbull’s ousting.

Turnbull said more moderate colleagues told him they were being pressured by conservative branch members who wanted him gone.

“This is a fundamental problem that the Liberal Party faces — in order to be successful as a political movement, you have to win votes from the centre,” Turnbull said.

The Liberal Party’s divide between the wets and the dries is far from new, but it has become so fierce it will see the Coalition thrown from office.

Malcolm Turnbull in Bali for the recent Oceans Conference pictured with Indonesian leader Joko Widodo.

As the party’s membership shrinks and ages, rank-and-file members represent a more conservative group of Liberal voters.

Liberal MPs ignore their branch members at their peril. But solely relying on them comes at an even greater risk: alienating the broader public who identify as Liberal voters but don’t pay membership fees.

Like it or not, our system of compulsory voting means major parties have little choice but to woo the centre.

At the 2016 election, more than 3.8 million gave their first preference vote to a Liberal. An additional 1.1 million voted for an LNP candidate.

That’s how many votes it takes to win an election by just one seat. Liberal MPs must ask themselves if policies and leadership fights to appease 80,000 branch members are worth shrinking the Coalition’s primary votes.