Andrew Bolt: Hopelessly divided Liberals face split or decline
THE Liberals are without an identity or purpose and endlessly divided against themselves. The party now faces a split or permanent decline, writes Andrew Bolt.
Andrew Bolt
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THE Liberal party no longer has a reason to be and faces a split or permanent decline.
The rot is clearest with the Turnbull Government. The Liberals have been mostly successful in their 72 years, but what do they still stand for in an age when we obsess about identity?
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On almost all the big issues, the Liberals are as divided as Australia itself, leaving them incapable of leadership or unity.
On same-sex marriage, MPs are split between those fiercely for, and others fundamentally against.
On free speech, there is now a brawl between Liberals who want people legally free to say they don’t like gay marriage and others who think opposition should be crushed by the law.
On indigenous politics, some MPs insist we should change our constitution to divide ourselves by race, while others warn against this dangerous racism.
On global warming, the Government has MPs who believe the scare is grossly exaggerated, but others think the danger is so great that our cheap coal-fired power stations must go.
On immigration, some MPs think importing nearly 200,000 people a year is a ludicrous strain, while others falsely claim that the more we bring in, the richer we’ll be.
On euthanasia, many MPs insist on giving people the freedom to have doctors kill them, but others warn this is a sin that threatens the lives of the lonely and mentally ill.
Even on the one issue where the Liberals once seem solid — government interference on business — the old unity is gone.
Yes, many MPs still fight to free business from government limits on their freedom to manage, hire and invest.
Yet the Turnbull Government is now even regulating how bank executives are paid. It has bullied gas exporters to break contracts, and threatened a power company to reverse a commercial decision to close the Liddell power station.
Yes, there was once a virtue in some of this division. The Liberals could resolve the big issues that split us by compromising calmly among themselves first.
But now? The splits have got too broad.
Worse for the Liberals, on many of these issues, voters now have a choice. For instance, if they want immigration cut, they can make a bigger fuss by voting for One Nation or the Australian Conservatives.
This leaves the Liberals without an identity or purpose, endlessly divided against themselves.
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