Fracturing Right needs a healing touch PM fails to offer

Not only is there no clear solution to the malaise, but the PM is also ill equipped — in temperament and judgment — to manage the situation.

Illustration: Eric Lobecke

The fracturing of the Right in domestic politics makes it nigh impossible for the government to focus its attention on the Labor Party, at least not sufficiently to be electorally competitive.

Rather, it continues to get caught up in a toxic mix of internal squabbles and ideological disagreements on its right flank. This means policy scripts that Labor is wedded to, many of which aren’t well conceived and pose threats to the economy, are not being scrutinised as closely as they should be.

Not only is there no obvious solution to the malaise on the Right, but Scott Morrison also is ill equipped — in terms of temperament and judgment — to manage the situation. This realisation is dawning rapidly on his colleagues.

While Bill Shorten has shown an adroitness in managing tensions within his factional ranks, the union movement and in negotiating with the Greens, the divisions on the conservative side are far more debilitating.

Internally, the Liberal Party is deeply divided, with moderates and conservatives at war across state divisions. There are also profound disagreements between tiers of the Liberal Party. For example, the NSW Liberal government deplores the federal party’s stance on energy and climate change policies. With both governments heading to the polls soon, such divisions will become only more difficult to manage. Then there is the Frankenstein’s beast that is Queensland’s Liberal National Party, an organisation prepared to throw its weight around and willing to stick its nose into the party business of both the Nationals and the Liberals, arguing that its hybrid structure allows it to do so. The Chinese walls between the Coalition parties have thus eroded, causing tensions we haven’t seen since the 1980s.

If it loses the next federal election, there is a genuine risk that the Coalition could dissolve, or the LNP might break away to form a separate partyroom.

These tensions are problematic before we even get to third-party challenges from outside the conservative Coalition. While Labor has to concern itself only with the Greens on its left flank, the Prime Minister needs to worry about Cory Bernardi’s Australian Conservatives, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation David Leyonhjelm’s Liberal Democrats (although he is retreating into state politics) and Katter’s Australian Party. Then there is the return of Clive Palmer and his United Australia Party.

While the changes to the Senate’s electoral system will cripple the chances of minor parties gaining a foothold in the upper house after the next election, their presence as distracting forces in the media will loom large on the campaign trail — especially in the battleground state of Queensland. They also sap resources from an already underfunded Coalition.

If Team Morrison lurches to the Right to ward off defections, it loses mainstream support in states such as Victoria. For example, holding Higgins in the aftermath of Kelly O’Dwyer’s departure becomes that much more difficult.

Although in time Senate electoral reforms will curb the enthusiasm of right-of-centre minor parties, the threat of ideological right-of-centre independents in the lower house will remain. And they are anything but a homogenous group, with different kinds of problems posed by inner-city liberals such as Kerryn Phelps on the one hand and conservative rural independents on the other.

These ideological rifts require more than lowbrow marketing sol­utions. Even a leader with the ideological ballast of a John Howard would struggle in the present climate. Morrison therefore is on a hiding to nothing, with the problems exacerbated by poor captain’s calls. The decision to parachute Warren Mundine into the marginal seat of Gilmore has already caused tensions.

Used adroitly, Mundine has much to offer, especially to a party lacking diversity. But a prime ministerial intervention going against the democratic processes in the local branches, which are already factionally divided, was bound to be a misstep.

To thereafter accuse the dumped preselected candidate of bullying revealed a poor temperament, especially to anyone familiar with the goings-on when Morrison won his preselection for the seat of Cook back in 2007.

One of the reasons Liberal leaders struggle to contain tensions and breakouts of dissent on their right flank is the growing disconnect between the party membership and the voting main­stream. The membership increas­ingly has more in common with right-of-centre minor parties and independents. And although this phenomenon also exists on the Labor side of politics, the tribalism that personifies the collectivist Left acts as a handbrake on dissent spilling over, especially when victory is in sight.

Then there is the pressure brought to bear on the Coalition by sections of the media. Conservative programming does more harm than good to the Coalition, stirring up dissent within the Right but not reaching the ears and eyeballs of swinging voters when attacks against Labor are just as ferocious.

Promoting policies that appeal to such an isolated and small ­cohort of the public only exacerbates the disconnect between the government and the mainstream. But because party members disproportionately watch and listen to such programming, MPs get a distorted perspective on the popularity of their positioning.

A look at the national polls should clarify that.

Although Malcolm Turnbull also struggled with all of the above, he did so from a more commanding position than Morrison — both in the polls and courtesy of the authority that comes with being prime minister for years rather than months.

Even if Turnbull lost the next election, it would have been closer than the result that now looms large. And with a prime minister and party deputy leader both in their 60s, a defeat under Turnbull and Julie Bishop would have left a new generation to reflect and rebuild in the aftermath.

Instead Morrison, at a relatively young age, will be damaged goods after the May election. Josh Frydenberg as party deputy faces the same risk of being tarnished by a bruising loss.

Christian Porter may not even hold his marginal West Australian seat, costing the party a potential future leader. That generation’s most senior woman, O’Dwyer, already has pulled the plug. Peter Dutton could lose his marginal Queensland seat.

That won’t leave many senior players to recast a damaged party fractured along state, ideological and personality lines. And the important role of oppositions holding governments to account therefore will suffer too, right when a new Labor government strives to radically reform taxation and industrial relations policies.

These are policy battlegrounds that once united the Right, but not any more.

Today, the things that divide the political Right are far more obvious than any causes that unite it. And the future looks even gloomier than the present.

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