Caleb Bond: Family First’s second coming is right on time for a reckoning in SA politics

Euthanasia and late-term abortion aren’t just ripping Labor in half, writes Caleb Bond. Conservatives everywhere are sick of being silenced by progressives.

The time is right for a conservative party to break into South Australian politics.

Many traditional Liberal voters are upset with the seemingly progressive agenda of the Marshall Liberal government.

They were even more riled by the recent attempt by the party’s moderate-run state executive to oust about 500 new members because many of them happened to be Pentecostal Christians – the same religious denomination as our Liberal Prime Minister.

This government introduced and passed legislation that gave the green light to late-term abortions if giving birth might be detrimental to the expectant mother’s mental health.

This government also overwhelmingly backed euthanasia laws.

Former Health Minister Jack Snelling pictured with current SA Labor heavyweight Tom Koutsantonis. Picture: Tait Schmaal

Many business people are thoroughly upset with continuing coronavirus restrictions that are depriving them of income and opportunities to employ people – not to mention the fact the government took on the property sector with its proposed land tax reforms.

There is serious discontent among conservatives in the Liberal Party.

It has almost been entirely taken over by the moderates and it shows in their policy agenda.

The voices of people like Robert Brokenshire, from the first iteration of Family First, are sorely missed.

So it is no wonder former Labor minister Jack Snelling and Tom Kenyon are staging a revival of Family First. Funnily enough, the strongest voice for conservative social policy in South Australian politics is now former Labor treasurer Tom Koutsantonis.

The Labor Right, in many respects, is more conservative than the SA Liberals.

Snelling and Kenyon, having been Labor Right heavyweights, are restarting Family First on a basically single-issue basis – to protect religious freedom.

Voices like those of former Liberal party, Family First and Australian Conservatives party's Robert Brokenshire is a sorely missed voice. Picture: Tracey Nearmy

The only trouble is other parties are also trying to fill this conservative vacuum and it risks splitting the vote, thus wasting the golden opportunity to reclaim a conservative voice in South Australian politics.

The Liberal Democrats are making moves interstate to contest the coming federal election and subsequent state elections on an agenda of freedom and ending this Covid madness.

They will also try to do the same in SA.

Their stance will appeal to the disenfranchised Liberal business community.

Family First, meanwhile, will focus on social issues.

The last thing we need is for the vote to split and for the conservative cause to be set even further back.

If minor parties want to fully harness the rise of conservative discontent, they must be careful not to become too narrow in their focus.

Originally published as Caleb Bond: Family First’s second coming is right on time for a reckoning in SA politics