Marles is deluded. In a world where merit mattered, he would be shown the door

It says a lot, none of it flattering, about the mentality of senior politicians on the front lines of the major parties, that as soon as the election campaign ended, losers and winners began devouring one another. Young cannibals joined with older mentors to inflict mayhem and misery across the spectrum.

Labor’s months-long disciplined focus on the issues that mattered to Australians evaporated in an egocentric grab for power spearheaded by the deputy prime minister, Richard Marles.

Illustration by Dionne Gain

At a time when Labor should have been rejoicing or enjoying the spectacle of their opponents fragmenting, Marles and his Victorian right-wing factional bosses tipped a big bucket of cow manure over Anthony Albanese, besmirching his resounding victory by ruthlessly executing two of the government’s better performers, Mark Dreyfus and Ed Husic.

Marles laid the foundations for the kind of instability which, over time, can undermine governments and leaders – regardless of the size of their majority. There is a difference between fights that deliver better policy and what Marles did by knifing two colleagues. The reverberations will continue throughout this term.

Marles put Albanese in an invidious position. As the prime minister who had secured a whopping majority, Albanese had the power and the authority to intervene and save Dreyfus and Husic, but it would have put him at odds with his deputy, as well as the Victorian Right.

NSW Right powerbrokers Matt Thistlethwaite, Chris Bowen and Tony Burke had been negotiating with Marles on the ministry soon after the election ended. Rather than dump Husic and Dreyfus now for no good reason, they urged him to chill, to wait for natural attrition to create vacancies.

They warned him that if he proceeded, there would be grave repercussions. That it would be an act of self-harm, that it would create considerable ill will inside the party, that there would be retribution, that the Muslim community would never forgive Husic’s sacking, and that it would distract from the Coalition’s infighting.

Initially, Marles appeared to take it all on board. Then he didn’t. It was a flat no.

Difficult as it might be to believe, Marles has leadership ambitions. One possible reason he ignored the advice was that he was shoring up his defences to ward off the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, who normal people see as the natural successor to Albanese thanks to his management of the economy and his communication skills.

In a world where merit really mattered, Marles would be the one to be dispatched. His performance has been so lacklustre that Peter Dutton ate him for breakfast on Nine’s Today whenever they appeared together.

The axing showed Marles’ weakness and lack of judgment, ensuring that Husic’s branding of him as a “factional assassin” sticks for the remainder of his career. It is definitely not a badge of honour.

Meanwhile, as the Liberal right refused to acknowledge that its leap ever further from the centre contributed to successive catastrophic defeats, Angus Taylor – aided and abetted by Tony Abbott – poached Trumpeteer Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price from the Nationals.

Nationals leader David Littleproud said it was because Price wanted something more than they could ever deliver: the prime ministership.

With that move, Taylor deepened tensions inside the Liberal Party, the Nationals, and between the Liberal Party and the Nationals. Moderates and centrists literally cheered when they heard what he had done. They believe recruiting Price cost him the leadership. Nothing personal, they just didn’t like the way it was done – her politics or her presumption.

In a world where merit really mattered, Marles would be the one to be dispatched.

The Liberal right had also been arguing that Taylor was not to blame for the election result, that it was all Dutton’s fault. Dutton does carry much of the blame, but no one person is responsible for losses of that magnitude. The elections of 2022 and 2025 exposed serious structural, philosophical and cultural flaws.

The party needs to reform from top to bottom and inside out if it is to have any chance at all of surviving. Left and right both know the challenges they face, but the closeness of the leadership vote showed the great divide on how to address them.

Progressive and centrist Liberals threatened before the vote that without change and if Taylor won, they would walk away from the party. Liberals who were in a mood to punish Taylor even before Price’s defection remain fearful the right will now not allow Sussan Ley to succeed, despite their assurances of a united front.

Moderates were fully aware of Ley’s faults when they chose her. Even before the vote showed how deeply divided the party was – perhaps irreparably – they were not brimming with confidence she would see out the term as leader.

Even though it was the easy part, she sailed through her first press conference with aplomb, especially considering her mother was so gravely ill.

Her victory, and the good beginning, lifted the spirits of the bruised moderates and centrists who have clung on, watching the party treat its “small-l liberal” heartland with contempt.

It’s been a long time since a Liberal leader talked about the need for the party to get back to the sensible centre as Ley did. How to get there and with whom will be the hard part.

How she brings the party together on climate change – which has split the Coalition for almost two decades now – net zero and nuclear, will be critical to her fate.

Then, think about this. Last year, after Bill Shorten and Stephen Jones realised they were surplus to requirements, Dreyfus asked if the prime minister wanted him gone. He was told to stay.

Dreyfus is now expected to resign, so there will be a byelection in Isaacs, which has a huge margin. By then, the mood might have soured, thanks in part to Marles. If the Liberals choose an attractive candidate (not Josh Frydenberg), voters could decide to give the government a big slap. Ley could consolidate. Stranger things have happened.

Niki Savva is a regular columnist and author of The Road to Ruin, Plots and Prayers and Bulldozed, the trilogy chronicling nine years of Coalition rule.

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