When life gives you Libertarians, you build a lemonade stand (with or without permission)

The new kid on the conservative block reckons it has the answer to the state’s crippling housing crisis. Approve every development application lodged with a council. A neighbour is worried about their view being restricted? “Boo-hoo,” says John Ruddick, leader of the NSW Libertarian Party. Want to cut down trees to build a granny flat? Go your hardest.

“If it does not affect another person’s property rights, you should have the freedom to develop your property the way you want, and we will support it,” says the party’s freedom manifesto, prepared for last weekend’s local government elections.

NSW Libertarian MP John Ruddick and Right to Climb founder Marc Hendrickx.

In polls that plenty expected to be a housing battle between the NIMBYs and YIMBYs, the Libertarian Party ran a radical pro-development campaign, promising that no DA would be opposed by a Libertarian councillor. Crazy-brave? Far from backfiring, the fringe party flourished.

The Libertarians, once the Liberal Democrats, have been quietly working away in the background to gain traction as a right-wing force in NSW. Their first break came when Ruddick, a former Liberal Party member, was elected to NSW Parliament in March last year, the sole Libertarian MP on the conservative cross bench in the upper house.

Next the party decided to run 32 candidates in the September 14 council elections. A stroke of good fortune went their way. The NSW Liberals spectacularly failed to nominate 140 candidates across 16 councils, paving the way for the Libertarians to sweep in and win over disgruntled Liberal voters.

“Lady Luck did smile on us,” Ruddick says, “but we also did very much capitalise on it. Rusted-on Liberal voters had a look around and said, ‘We like your tone, we like your policies.’” And they voted for them.

The Libertarians, as of Wednesday, had 13 councillors elected across the state, although that could grow to as many as 17 in the remainder of the count, meaning about half of all their candidates were successful.

In Sydney’s south-west, the Libertarians are confident they will have the balance of power on Camden Council, but their success was even more impressive on the MidCoast Council. The party has secured almost 25 per cent of the primary vote and will likely control the council.

Ruddick reckons that is only the beginning. Since the success on the weekend, the Libertarians have been inundated with calls from independents who have picked up seats on councils across NSW. They now want to sit under the Libertarian banner. “We could have hundreds by Christmas,” Ruddick says.

The party is the surprise success story of the local government elections, but why now? It was not its unashamedly pro-development stance, nor its push to ban drag story time at libraries. Rather, a right-wing void has emerged in NSW. The Christian Democrats, which at their peak had two upper house MPs led by the moral crusader Fred Nile, have collapsed. The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers have petered out and One Nation is down to just one MP with no powerful mouthpiece.

One Nation rattled the Liberals when it secured two MPs in Macquarie Street, thanks to having what was then the star power of renegade Labor defector Mark Latham as their lead candidate. But One Nation’s short-term surge as a right-wing disruptor in NSW has ended, with Latham quitting the party and former One Nation MP Rod Roberts following suit. They are now independent crossbenchers.

One-time Labor MP Tania Mihailuk joined One Nation and is now its only MP in NSW. She does not have the profile or bloody-mindedness of Latham. She will probably lose her seat in 2027, and One Nation will go the way of the Christian Democrats.

Ruddick, a former mortgage broker who wrote a book called Make the Liberal Party Great Again, says the Libertarians are very much the “little brother of the Liberal Party”. But unlike their more established sibling, the party has stayed truer to its core philosophy of small government.

He has had small wins in NSW, and most notably Ruddick forced Premier Chris Minns into making Sydney fun again. Minns supported calls for fewer restrictions on Sydneysiders – such as drinking in public parks or at the beach – when Ruddick introduced a bill to overturn the alcohol ban for open spaces.

The Libertarians’ platform for the local government elections covered a full gamut: all “diversity officers” employed on councils should be sacked; kids should be allowed to have lemonade stands without being harassed by council officers; and welcome-to-country ceremonies must be optional. And forget bike lanes. “Local councils should be traffic engineers, not social engineers.” Possible, just perhaps, on the MidCoast Council, but that ambitious platform is a long way from reality on others.

So, what is the next frontier for the Libertarians in NSW? The party will take on the Liberals in the Hornsby and Pittwater byelections next month. “Then the Senate,” Ruddick says. “I believe we have the momentum to become the only pro-free market minor purist party to keep the Liberals in check.”

The little brother with a big voice.

Alexandra Smith is state political editor.