Julian Leeser’s resignation from the Coalition frontbench will cause Peter Dutton some short-term political pain but it’s what the Leeser position suggests that presents a potential longer-term danger for the Liberal leader.
The now former opposition legal affairs spokesman says the voice referendum model is a bad model but he will vote for it anyway. This is a position shared by a growing number of constitutional conservatives, Greg Craven included.
It requires valid constitutional concerns to be set aside in favour of a greater moral imperative.
This is precisely where Anthony Albanese has been trying to steer the debate since its inception.
Leeser, who was also the Coalition’s Indigenous affairs spokesperson, has just signalled to other Liberal MPs wrestling with their conscience that there is a third path through the politics.
Leeser’s proposed model – backing constitutional change but legislating the voice’s remit – was comprehensively rejected by the Opposition Leader and the Liberal partyroom.
On this basis, his decision to resign from the frontbench was warranted and necessary to preserve his integrity.
As he said, he wanted to be able to tell his children that he stood up for something he “believed in”.
And as a backbencher he is now free to do as he pleases. Unlike the Labor Party.
Yet while Leeser stands by his criticism of the model, any political weight this may have once carried is surely diminished.
His resignation will be cast by Labor as an endorsement.
The obvious concern for Dutton is that Leeser’s protest triggers a falling of the dominoes, based on a belief that you can oppose the voice as a flawed model but vote Yes anyway.
This is unlikely, considering the numbers in the Liberal partyroom are heavily weighted towards the Dutton position, which at its core is a rejection of a national Indigenous voice of any kind being enshrined in the Constitution.
Even Leeser on Tuesday acknowledged his position was inconsistent with the “majority” of his colleagues.
But this is the risk.
Leeser didn’t need to quit the Liberal Party to make his point, which preserves the numerical status quo.
Losing someone of Leeser’s standing from the frontbench is damaging enough but losing a backbencher whose only recourse would be to resign the party would be a devastating blow.
In the wake of former Coalition cabinet minister Ken Wyatt’s decision to resign from the Liberal Party last week, there is no question that the optics have just become very messy for the Opposition Leader.
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