Liberal voters are forcing their party to take a long, hard look at themselves

Once again the Liberal Party has learnt their voting base is more ruthless than any Wall Street broker could ever aspire to be - and for good reason. If the Coalition can’t get its act together, the Prime Minister will have carte blanche to change Australia as he wants.

Well, that didn’t go to plan.

Once again the Liberal Party has learnt their voting base is more ruthless than any Wall Street broker could ever aspire to be. And for good reason.

The fact is, conservative voters put the same high expectations on their political leaders as they do on any other person with ambition and, if you don’t meet those expectations, my mob are happy to ignore you until you do. We’re not as tribal as the ALP.

That’s why the Federal Liberal Party had its bum tanned on Saturday. Looking around the seats that changed hands I think it’s safe to say the vote wasn’t necessarily an endorsement of the Prime Minister, particularly given the swing to the Teals in traditionally safe Liberal electorates.

What we did see were Liberal voters forcing their party to go away and have a good hard look at themselves.

It’s a fine example of conservatives cutting off their proverbial nose to spite their face. Not even the most Dutton sceptical person in the Coalition could have predicted the result and, to be fair, it’s not entirely our fault.

There were variables, both here and overseas, that had an influence.

So what went wrong?

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton concedes defeat. Picture: Dan Peled/Getty Images

Well, starting the year riding high in the polls didn’t help us as it lured more than a few marginal seat MPs and candidates into a false sense of security, believing it was OK to take their foot off the accelerator and simply rely on votes because they weren’t Labor.

The tortoise started to catch up to the hare. Add to that the disgust Australians took to Trump and the way he was treating his mates which forced Peter Dutton to scramble to his phone and delete all sycophantic references to the US President. Then a massive breakdown in communication over Work from Home and nuclear policies became Dutton’s modern day GST birthday cake (for the uninitiated, “google” it. It’s hilarious).

Meanwhile, the sacked Liberal Party state executive here in NSW meant there was less local input into the campaign and a complete lack of an economic narrative all led to a brutal “F” being scribbled across ballot papers by traditional Liberal voters. The challenge now is for conservatives to rebuild and bring back their own, but as anyone who has attended a suburban AA meeting will tell you, the first step to addressing a problem is admitting you have one.

And we have a problem.

Labor Party supporters cheer as the ABC projects an election victory on Saturday night. Picture: Izhar Khan/Getty Images

You’re going to hear a lot about Albo being in for another two terms. Don’t believe a word of it, just ask Campbell Newman.

One of the golden rules of Australian politics is that the electorate giveth and the electorate can taketh away.

If this election was the most important facing Australia in living memory (which is crap by the way, we say that about every election) then the Liberal Party’s post-election review over the next few months will surely mirror that sense of urgency and it needs to start with asking why the people of Penrith stuck with us and why those in Vaucluse won’t return our calls.

As a conservative voter I don’t stay awake at night necessarily scared about how Anthony Albanese is going to govern. My greatest fear is that the Liberal Party is going to let him do it without scrutiny.

Originally published as Liberal voters are forcing their party to take a long, hard look at themselves