Rita Panahi: The teal MPs were expecting to wield enormous power but are now redundant

The teal independents’ decimation of the Liberal’s most moderate MPs will result in the rebirth of a genuinely conservative party.

So much for changing the course of the country. Simon Holmes a Court’s cohort of teal ladies will have zero power in the new Australian parliament with the Labor Party on the cusp of securing a majority in the lower house, making the teal ladies redundant.

Just a couple of days ago they were expecting their MPs to wield enormous power and make all sorts of demands on the Anthony Albanese government.

Member for Kooyong Monique Ryan was under the false impression that she and her Climate 200 MPs would be kingmakers, saying she would not offer confidence and supply unless Labor adopted more ambitious climate policies.

“He (Anthony Albanese) will need to give us the assurance that he will provide to us what the electorates that have elected us are wanting, and what we want is effective action on ­climate change,” she said. Talk about counting your chickens before they hatch.

Simon Holmes a Court’s cohort of teal ladies will have zero power in the new parliament. Picture: Josie Hayden

Holmes a Court should be congratulated for surpassing his previous biggest achievement, being born into a billionaire family, by fundamentally changing the political landscape in Australia but perhaps not in the way he envisaged. The decimation of the Liberal’s most moderate MPs will see the rebirth of a genuinely conservative party.

This is the election loss the Coalition had to have. After spending 20 of the past 26 years in power the Liberal Party had lost sight of who they are and what they stand for; the broad church had become incoherent, contradictory and often just a confused imitation of Labor. No policy shift better demonstrated the Liberals’ incoherence than the commitment to net zero.

A harebrained political strategy from a supposedly centre right government which was designed to diffuse climate change as an election issue did precisely the opposite. It emboldened Labor, the Greens and Holmes a Court’s teals and prevented the Coalition from arguing against the madness of adopting policies that will reduce reliability while increasing prices.

Scott Morrison after his election defeat. Picture: YouTube/Horizon Church

Given the energy crisis in Europe, including the UK, where net zero policies and the transition towards a low carbon economy have seen prices soar to astronomic levels – and that was before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine exacerbated the problem further – the Coalition could’ve run a powerful campaign on why prices and reliability are more important than emission targets. That’s what they did successfully in 2019 in what was called “the climate change election” but this time they adopted Labor’s policies and could not argue against what they themselves were pledging to implement, just in a slower fashion.

Meanwhile, the party’s most Left leaning “progressives” lost in spectacular fashion from Higgins to Wentworth, but don’t expect that inconvenient fact to stop the Leftist media from arguing that the Liberals must lurch further Left to win back power. Advice so diabolically dumb that if adopted would see the federal Libs become as unelectable as the WA and Victorian counterparts.

Simon Holmes a Court campaigning in Kooyong. Picture: Twitter

In order to hold on to a handful of affluent inner city seats, the Liberals compromised their core values and policies and ignored the opportunity in the suburbs and regions where cost of living was the number one concern.

The decision to embrace net zero meant the Coalition could no longer provide an alternative to the climate change policies pushed by the Left where emissions are prioritised above energy cost, reliability and jobs. The impact in Australia would be even harsher than what is happening in Europe given the local ban on nuclear power. As Senator Matt Canavan explained on Sunday the Coalition lost because they forgot the forgotten people. “The electorate hasn’t changed all that much in three years but we did,” he said. “We adopted a liberal moderate platform on energy, on climate, on culture issues, and that platform has failed. It failed in WA, it failed in South Australia and it has failed nationally.”

Senator Canavan called on his parliamentary colleagues to ignore the Leftist media’s calls to move further left and to focus on what people care about most; cost of living.

Senator Matt Canavan says the Coalition lost because they forgot the forgotten people.

“We legitimised the green agenda because we signed up to the destination,” he said. “When you take a pale imitation of labor’s policies to an election people go for the real deal.”

The Liberal Party’s base is no longer in wealthiest suburbs but among working class and aspirational Australians in the suburbs and regions who are socially conservative and no longer identify with modern Labor’s often radical policy positions.

The IPA’s John Roskam has urged the Liberals to focus on their new heartland with the Coalition now holding 16 of the 20 poorest federal seats. From the UK to the US and in Australia the rich are voting for Leftist options while the working and middle class are turning to conservative parties. In Australia Labor holds more of the top 20 wealthiest electorates than the Liberal party while the Coalition dominates in the seats with the lowest average household incomes.

These are people who weren’t born into wealth but work hard to create financial security for their families. They care about energy costs more than emission targets. They care about their children being properly educated rather than indoctrinated in school. They love their country and are not embarrassed by it like so many privileged and self-loathing Greens and teals.

That’s the Liberals new base and the sooner they realise it, the sooner they will be back in office.