Monash Forum: Coal-fired foolishness not enough to dislodge Malcolm Turnbull

If a charge of the light brigade is Abbott and Co’s endgame, I’ll be on hand to watch the massacre. But the Nats are the real story.

Illustration: Eric Lobbecke

Two peas in a pod: the Greens and the reactionary conservatives in the Liberal Party. Both called for more government intervention this week.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale did so in a National Press Club address on Wednesday. He wants a universal basic income (Thomas Pik­etty style) and a people’s bank to be run by the Reserve Bank. In fairness, though, the Greens don’t hide their support for big government behind a party name with the word liberal in it.

The Coalition delcons have formed an inappropriately named club, the Monash Forum, to push for a government-owned coal-fired power station. Fancy being so self-important as to name your group after a distinguished World War I general. Sir John Monash wasn’t even a sniper.

This group — essentially Tony Abbott, Eric Abetz and Kevin Andrews — is joined by a bunch of agrarian socialists (otherwise known as Nationals). It’s a case of the junior Coalition partner outnumbering the senior Coalition partner’s delcons in Monash’s uninspiring modern-day political army. No wonder the Monash family demanded the group stop using his name.

When you factor in the number of Nationals affiliated with the forum, the ideological link to the Greens becomes less surprising. Nationals often have pushed for government intervention, much to the irritation of true Liberals. Once upon a time true conservatives were as irritated by such positioning as liberals are.

Not any more. No wonder Cory Bernardi chose to break away and form his own party: consistently pro-conservative on social issues and economically liberal on others. The delcons, on the other hand, seem more motivated by spite than policy purity.

Plenty of younger names have been listed as members of this not-so-secret society. With the possible exception of Craig Kelly, the other non-Nationals have ­denied membership or distanced themselves from the printed version of what’s described as the group’s raison d’etre.

You know delcons are truly delusional when Andrew Hastie won’t join their ranks. Hastie is without a doubt his generation’s leading social conservative.

Abbott’s former chief of staff, Peta Credlin, has claimed the group has 30 members, which assists our understanding of how and why a first-term prime minister lost count of his partyroom numbers when Malcolm Turnbull was lurking.

Tony Abbott and Eric Abetz. Picture: Matt Thompson

I’m not offended by the base economic stupidity of the plan for a government-funded coal-fired power station. Sure, it goes against free-market principles and is hypocritical given the Abbott administration’s decision not to renew government subsidies for the domestic car industry. And yes, the building of such a power station would take six years, and banks aren’t willing to fund a new coal-fired power station because they know there won’t be a return on the investment.

We can put all of that to one side. Those are the known knowns. What I don’t understand is why the likes of Abbott, Abetz and Andrews didn’t come up with this harebrained plan when they had power and influence. They were, after all, only the prime minister of the country, government leader in the Senate, and the prime minister’s closest ideological confidant and friend in cabinet.

Three outsiders, to be sure.

Where were they during the first two years of the Coalition government? Perhaps too busy retreating from support for the world’s most generous paid parental leave scheme. (Remember that peccadillo?) Or were they too busy signing up to the Paris climate change accord they now condemn?

They also were presiding over high immigration rates that they now want halved. That might have taken up a lot of their time.

It’s hard to take any of what this lot comes up with very seriously, even when they advocate good ideas (give me some time to think of one), much less when they come up with the notion of a new government-owned coal-fired power station. At least have the courage to advocate nuclear power instead of more coal.

I’m old enough to remember when Liberals believed in selling power stations rather than building them, which also raises the question why Turnbull is building Snowy 2.0.

The small band of delcons within the grandiose Monash Forum are little more than a red herring. Credlin says their ruminating could lead to a leadership challenge.

If a charge of the light brigade is their endgame, I’ll be on hand to watch the massacre. But it won’t dislodge even a Newspoll-weakened prime minister.

The real story is the Nationals, and the fact their involvement speaks to the divisions within the Coalition. Unlike the delcons, significant numbers of Nationals have been foolish enough to join the ranks of Monash’s sniper platoon.

The challenge this grouping creates for the Prime Minister is growing hostility between the Coalition partners. The tactical genius behind the Nationals’ involvement is that well known loyalist George Christensen — the fellow who backgrounded Andrew Bolt that he was planning to quit the Coalition to sit on the crossbench, only to show all the courage of the lion in The Wizard of Oz without the ending.

Lots of Nationals, nonetheless, have joined the Monash snipers and that will put pressure on the party’s new leader, Michael McCormack. There is no love lost between Barnaby Joyce and McCormack, or between him and the Prime Minister. With Joyce marshalling dissent rather than loyalty, this forum does have the potential to fracture the Coalition.

But towards what end?

We know why Abbott and co are doing this: not out of a new-found policy purity or ideological consistency. Abbott looks like a conviction politician but he has been a policy weathervane his whole career.

The only two consistencies have been his support for the monarchy and for Credlin.

Team Abbott has two aims. The first is to wound Turnbull as regularly and substantially as possible. The second is to assume control of the wreckage left behind — the Coalition (and the Liberal Party within it) — once on the opposition benches. The required precursor is a hefty election defeat.

It’s akin to fighting over a stripped carcass, the way vultures and hyenas may do.

Sequels are rarely as good as the original. The original Abbott opposition vowed to stop the boats, scrap the carbon tax and pay back the debt. It was sloganistic, to be sure, but effective at delivering government. I’m not sure building government-subsidised coal-fired power stations, halving the immigration intake and embracing Hansonism has quite the same ring to it, but that’s what Abbott and his small band of merry supporters believe is their ticket to political redemption.

Peter van Onselen is a professor of politics at the University of Western Australia.