Dutton backers won’t stop at toppling Turnbull

This government will lose under Scott Morrison, but rectionary Liberals won’t rest until their delusion is enacted.

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By the time of the 2013 federal election, the then Labor government had descended into such ­internal bitterness and backstabbing that it deserved to lose, irrespective of how worthy its political opponents were of high office.

As it turned out, the Coalition has proved itself unworthy for much the same reasons. An unpopular prime minister, Tony Abbott, was ousted less than two years into the job, while the transaction costs of such skulduggery were overlooked.

Less than three years later, Abbott’s reactionary mates botched a coup to remove their internal enemy, Malcolm Turnbull, delivering a compromise prime minister in the shape of Scott Morrison.

Compromised ministers now adorn the ranks of cabinet and the outer ministry. How anyone could believe any longer a single word Health Minister Greg Hunt utters in combating Labor attacks is beyond me. Put to one side his policy gymnastics in e-health and so on. Hunt stood up in parliament and expressed confidence in his prime minister immediately after voting to oust him, and immediately before doing so again. And he was scheming with Peter Dutton to run on a ticket as his deputy.

A conga line of other ministers behaved similarly, including Ang­us Taylor, promoted to cabinet anyway despite the sort of treachery that in any other employment situation would see you fired.

As such, irrespective of how worthy Bill Shorten is of high office, this government does not deserve to retain it. We must hope, though, that the next Labor government — even one led by the man who orchestrated the downfall of Kevin Rudd and then Julia Gillard — has learned from past mistakes.

Meanwhile, the attempts by Liberals who partook in last week’s regicide to justify the decision have involved a litany of false narratives. Turnbull was finished anyway, we are told, as though making the situation worse would somehow ameliorate the problems the government faced. Much less installing Dutton, who has long enjoyed single-digit support in the polls as a potential leader. The latest Newspoll had it at a whopping 6 per cent. Among Liberal voters — the base Dutton’s supporters told us he appealed to — it drops to 5 per cent.

The most common complaint emanating from the reactionary Right is that Turnbull is a “leftie” (a misconception we will explore shortly) and the Coalition under his leadership has lurched away from conservative principles.

This latter point denies the reality of the Turnbull government’s policies and who was pulling the strings behind the scenes. It also overstates the ­capacity of the factional Right to even understand what ideological conservatism is all about.

Yes, the Turnbull government legislated same-sex marriage, which is supported by at least 62 per cent of the Australian population. But it did so only after holding a plebiscite Abbott wanted, delivered as a postal vote, which is what Dutton wanted.

Turnbull became best known for his willingness to acquiesce to so-called conservative causes at the behest of his two most influential advisers: Dutton and Senate leader Mathias Cormann.

Abbott signed us up to Paris climate change targets; Turnbull followed that through. Abbott walked away from changes to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act; Turnbull revisited the issue. Abbott presided over soaring immigration rates; Turnbull allowed a rethink and a reduction.

Abbott vacated the industrial relations reform space (having argued against John Howard’s reforms in the latter’s government); Turnbull put it all on the line at a double-dissolution election seeking to legislate the Australian Building and Construction Commission. Turnbull delivered income and company tax cuts; Abbott increased the top marginal tax rate. The list goes on, but reactionaries don’t seem to care.

Equally, those who get branded as “moderates” or, worse, “lefties” in the parliamentary Liberal Party are no such thing when we look at the issues they champion. The charge is logical only when it comes from someone so far out on the Right fringe that all of us look like lefties in comparison.

We are told it wasn’t personal, Turnbull had to go for policy reasons, not personality. Yet Morrison is changing little in policy terms and he, not Dutton, was Turnbull’s preferred successor. Will opponents of Turnbull keep up the fight? Or were their claims of policy-driven sniping a furphy?

Meanwhile, few, if any, MPs in the Liberal Party continue to fight for economic liberalism, having replaced this historically vital component of Liberal tradition with a form of populism that flies in the face of that tradition. There really are few, if any, economic dries left in Liberal ranks — and even if there were, it’s doubtful they would have the skills to argue effectively for the cause, much less win over an unsympathetic electorate.

Populism is pervasive on the Left and the Right.

Through this process, Liberals also have managed something I didn’t think possible: to further discourage women from voting for them or joining their ranks. Julia Banks is quitting in disgust at the bullying she witnessed. And she won’t be alone by the time the next election comes around. Despite the fact there are very few women in parliamentary Liberal ranks — with no indications that is going to change after preselections for the next election — it was telling how few among them supported the coup.

Off the back of that gender divide, Liberals have now lost Julie Bishop from her leadership position and the ministry. And you can bet her fundraising offerings will be dialled right back.

Bishop and Turnbull were the last two figures who gave the business community even the slightest sense that the government understood the challenges presented by the economy and public policy settings. Cormann was perhaps a third such figure, but his flip during the crisis week has done a lot to diminish such confidence.

And when this government does lose under Morrison’s leadership, as it surely will, what then? Because the coup plotters didn’t succeed in pushing Dutton into the prime ministership, they will claim he could have done better. So the lowbrow dispute will go on in opposition as reactionaries continue to argue the party needs to pitch further to the Right. Until their deluded vision is enacted, they won’t give up.

That’s what the modern Liberal Party has become.

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