Peta Credlin: Liberal Party's ‘killing season’ installs new leaders but huge challenges remain
Two state Liberal leaders have fallen in a week of political bloodletting, leaving newcomers facing the immense challenge of rebuilding viable oppositions, writes Peta Credlin.
In October 1997, after he’d lost three ministers and two senior staffers to “travel rorts”, John Howard memorably observed that “politics is a hard and unforgiving business, but it can also be the highest and noblest form of public service”.
After a week that can only be described as the Liberal Party’s killing season, with two state leaders knifed and a federal leader under siege, the “blood sport” dimension is obvious.
The challenge will be to ensure that something better emerges from this turmoil: namely Liberal oppositions that are worthy alternative governments.
There’s got to be a good reason for a successful leadership change.
Sometimes it can be the alternative leader’s charisma, as when Bob Hawke replaced Bill Hayden at the start of the 1983 federal campaign.
Sometimes, it can be the “it’s time” factor, as when Paul Keating replaced a PM who’d run out of puff eight years on. Or the “everyone else has been tried and failed”, as when Howard was recycled in 1995. Or it can be the result of winning the fight for a better policy, as when Tony Abbott replaced Malcolm Turnbull in 2009, or when Scott Morrison replaced Turnbull in 2018.
Normally, to be successful, a leadership change can’t be for cosmetic reasons: as in Julia Gillard’s weak justification for rolling Kevin Rudd, that “a good government has lost its way”; or Turnbull’s for rolling Abbott. Otherwise the electorate will see that it’s just leadership votes being auctioned off to the highest bidder for personal advancement.
Sure, the right leader is the one with the best chance of winning an election – but that means public appeal, rather than just buying off caucus with promises of a job.
Changing leaders other than for reasons that can be well understood and accepted (however reluctantly) normally leads to lasting internal bad blood.
Both main parties were badly damaged by the revolving-door prime ministership that afflicted our polity from 2007-22. As was popular respect for public life more generally and trust in MPs who seemed addicted to regular bouts of political cannibalism.
The fact both Jess Wilson, the new Liberal leader in Victoria, and Kellie Sloane, in NSW, were initially reluctant to go ahead with challenges suggests both had the maturity to realise successful leadership changes have to be more of a draft than a bloodbath; plus, as first-term MPs, both were smart enough to know they still had a lot to learn.
Reluctance aside, both are now in the deep end. While personable and media-savvy, their fortunes will hinge on their ability to articulate a plausible policy direction and to get lazy colleagues to pull their weight.
If they can do that, my instinct is the party’s polls will improve. But both will need to curb their left-leaning Liberal instincts (Wilson, after all, infamously supported the Voice) and appeal to the party’s base, which has started to drift very strongly to others on the right, including One Nation.
In Victoria, on the day he was dumped, the Libs’ now-former Victorian leader, Brad Battin, was a whopping 43 percentage points ahead of the Premier in net favourability, and the Coalition was just ahead in two party-preferred terms for the first time in many years.
The “it’s time” factor should be running strongly against a state government seeking a fourth term with the highest taxes, the biggest debt, the most bloated and politicised public service, and the most expensive and delayed infrastructure, in the middle of a crime crisis.
But to achieve the 6 per cent-plus swing needed to win a net 16 seats, Wilson will need to unite a partyroom full of personal animosities and get an indolent, faction-riven frontbench to fight Labor rather than each other.
It will be even harder in NSW, where though the Libs need fewer seats (11), they are up against a first-term government that hasn’t made many obvious mistakes with a leader, Chris Minns, who is the kind of right-wing Labor premier many Liberal voters like.
Federally, despite dumping net zero, Sussan Ley remains in a fight to survive as her moderate supporter base seems to be drifting away and conservatives remain unconvinced she’s got what it takes to beat Labor.
The Albanese government is beatable IF the Coalition does the policy work early and fights for it right up until election day. With our economy stagnant, our society polarised, and our security more fragile than at any time since the late 1930s, it’s vital there’s a strong alternative to deeply underwhelming Labor governments.
For all its faults, the Liberal Party remains the best hope of better government. But that means coming up with credible policies that will be change for the better, and reforming the faction-ridden structures that put people off becoming members, rather than keeping the “messiah complex” that government will fall into their laps if only there’s a change of leader.
THUMBS UP
NZ government – for this week banning the use of puberty blockers in children, as has UK and many others countries. Why not Australia then?
THUMBS DOWN
Albanese government – for granting $27m to an Islamic organisation via a “closed non-competitive” process despite its top cleric declaring “jihad against the Zionist entity” was a “binding duty”.
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Originally published as Peta Credlin: Liberal Party's ‘killing season’ installs new leaders but huge challenges remain
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