Liberal Party just killed itself with weird strategy
The party can now kiss goodbye to regaining any of the extra seats lost to the Teals, says Joe Hildebrand.
OPINION
Apparently Peter Dutton has decided that the Voice to parliament is such a threat to our nation he is prepared to sacrifice his leadership and his party’s life to stop it from happening.
Because the federal Liberal Party just killed itself this week and the only reason it hasn’t already fallen down dead is that it’s staggering around like a ham cowboy in a spaghetti western.
It can now kiss goodbye to regaining any of the seats it lost to the Teals at the last election and can expect to lose more at the next. At least Dutton will now be as safe from Josh Frydenberg as he is from the prime ministership.
Indeed, there had been a sense among NSW Libs that, after the values voters in those electorates vented their anger at Scott Morrison, the outrage had abated – hence the muted Teal vote at the state election. Dutton has now just given the Teals another giant floating target and a fundraising platform to boot.
You would also think that after losing a once-in-a-century by-election in leafy suburban Melbourne the Libs might have thought it was time to change tack. Instead they are accelerating towards the edge of the cliff.
The party is now behaving much like right-wing Republicans who have decided they would rather lose with Trump than win with anyone else.
Indeed, perhaps the Liberals are less concerned with suicide-worthy constitutional ideals than they are with sheer ragged survival. Perhaps they are so scared of losing the few voters they have left that they have given up hope of ever attracting a majority of Australians.
If so, it is a pretty weird strategy. What is the point of a major political party that cannot win elections?
There isn’t one. The Liberals are punch drunk and panicked, lurching from position to position, each more untenable and silly than the last.
Witness the unedifying spectacle of poor Sussan Ley trying to argue with all the enthusiasm of a kamikaze pilot the absurd proposition that the Liberals weren’t advocating a hard no but a partial no.
I’m no constitutional lawyer but I’m pretty sure that “Partial No” isn’t one of the options on the referendum ballot. It is either Yes or No – that is literally, physically it.
This is the same fantasist thinking that direct electionists argued for their imaginary republic at their imaginary follow-up referendum. Each voter doesn’t get to walk into the polling booth and scribble out a short essay outlining their preferred model for constitutional reform. It is embarrassingly childish stuff.
And so the Liberal leadership and frontbench have now been locked into campaigning for a No vote. Only backbenchers will be able to cross the floor without consequences.
Already former Indigenous Affairs Minister Ken Wyatt has quit the party in disgust.
So what will the shadow Indigenous Affairs Minister Julian Leeser do? He too supports the Voice and has rightly argued for a conscience vote on the issue. Will he be prepared to go down in history as voting against a measure that the vast majority of Indigenous Australians want?
And what will leading moderate and senior frontbencher Simon Birmingham do? Just this week after the Aston shellacking he desperately called for the Liberal Party to stop presenting as nasty and now it’s about to say no to Indigenous Australians meekly asking for a non-binding advisory body on issues that affect them.
That sounds more nasty than nice. You can bet he won’t want his vote recorded in the No column for posterity. That’s one leading figure already gain and another two potentially quitting the frontbench and it’s still only week one.
And of course the NSW Liberals have already endorsed the Voice, pitting the Federal Party against its last mainland stronghold, and the last remaining Liberal premier in Tasmania will be actively campaigning for Yes – openly against the Federal Party. How the hell does that square up?
Liberal moderates are smart enough to know how history will see this moment. It will be as scarring for the Libs as the Dismissal but without the electoral reward.
Just think, which they clearly haven’t: If the Voice succeeds they have rendered themselves irrelevant. If it fails they will forever carry the blame.
Either way, the Liberals’ brand – already defined by their own analysis as not fit for purpose – will become more toxic than a nuclear winter. And that is precisely what they will experience electorally as NSW, Victoria, Aston and Australia have already shown.
In a sense this is a shame for Peter Dutton, whom despite our political differences I consider a good and decent man. He has been played by the right of his party who think the solution to the public rejecting right-wing politics is to move further to the right, which is exactly where the cliff lies waiting.
Instead, the future for both Labor and Liberal is in the warm arms of middle Australia and I have faith that they – we – will embrace the Voice.
Why? Because after two-and-a-half centuries of rule by the rest of us, the First Australians are asking for only one little thing: Not to rule, not to control, not even to obstruct but merely to be heard.
And I believe this great country – mainstream Australians in their millions – are not too hard-hearted to deny such a humble request.
God help us all if I’m wrong.
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