Tony Abbott’s advice to the Liberal Party not to focus too much on regaining the lost blue-ribbon heartland of Australia’s richest real estate but to look to less well-off outer suburbs for renewal and revival is spot-on.
Abbott believes too many former and current Liberal MPs have provided knee-jerk reactions to the drastic loss of affluent inner-city seats to the so-called teal Climate 200 group, declaring there needs to be a move to the “right or left”, particularly on climate change policy, as a solution without recognising the problem.
A swath of moderate, progressive Liberal MPs has been wiped out by teals running on just two policies – an integrity commission and more cuts to greenhouse gas emissions – in a parasitical political campaign that cost Scott Morrison any chance. In an election that mostly concentrated on cost-of-living pressures, the seats of Wentworth, Kooyong, North Sydney, McKellar, Goldstein and Curtin were not clamouring for income support.
But instead of conservatives or the remaining moderates fighting a new climate war over the undoubtedly difficult policy of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 they need to stand back strategically, and recognise the changed landscape and the entrenched nature of the affluent independent vote.
They also have to identify where to garner new support and build on existing strengths.
Abbott helped the Liberals where he could during the campaign and, unlike the man who knocked him off, Malcolm Turnbull, did not criticise or undermine the Coalition. As well, he has now spoken without recrimination or ideological bent to simply identify a potential advantage in a slough of despondency.
As one of only four Liberal leaders to win government from opposition, as a successful opposition leader who reduced Labor to a minority government after just one term and who then won the next election with a 16-seat majority, Abbott’s view on a strategy on how to win deserves attention. He has recognised the likelihood of entrenched elitist, inner-city MPs holding traditional Liberal seats, just as Greens will hold traditional Labor seats, and the need and potential for Liberals to extend support in the outer suburbs and link with the regional and rural support of fringe Liberals and Nationals.
The demographics and election results speak for themselves of the potential for Liberal appeals to small business, family, migrants, tradespeople and contractors in the less affluent suburbs. In Sydney’s western, formerly Labor seat of Fowler, the only true independent success of 2022, Dai Le, who defeated former NSW Labor premier, Kristina Keneally, who was parachuted in from Sydney’s uber-exclusive Scotland Island, did so as a migrant and small businesswoman, with a family and grassroots support.
Obviously the Liberal Party has to repair its broken state organisations but it also has to do the reshaping without falling back on the stupid ideological and factional battles and look to a longer-term goal.
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