Off the rails: A week from hell with grave consequences for the Liberal Party
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“I thought it was pretty shabby and disrespectful behaviour,” the new member for Wentworth told Fairfax Media.
Only a dozen or so Coalition MPs stayed, including Frydenberg and cabinet ministers Christopher Pyne and Kelly O’Dwyer.
Those close to the Prime Minister say he simply didn’t know the speech was happening. But he should have. At best his absence was bad optics, at worse a demonstration of bad relationship management and a lack of respect for Wentworth residents who until October had been loyal Liberal voters.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison departs the chamber as Kerryn Phelps (left) prepares to begin her maiden speech.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Julia Banks is welcomed to the crossbench by independent MPs Cathy McGowan, Rebekha Sharkie and Kerryn Phelps. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Reeling from the Victorian loss, Senate President Scott Ryan made a significant intervention on Monday by saying Liberal voters who abandoned the party in Wentworth and Victoria have sent an important message to Canberra.
“They don’t want litmus tests for what it means to be a real liberal,” Ryan said of Liberal voters. “They don’t want views rammed down their throat and they don’t want to ram their views down other people’s throats.
“I want to cast the net wide in the Menzies and Howard tradition as to give people a reason to be Liberals. Not come up with litmus tests and say ‘if you don’t hold this view on a social issue or this particular view on climate change or renewable energy that somehow you’re not a real Liberal’ – that is not the path to electoral success. And I am sick of being lectured to by people who aren’t members the party, by people who have never stood on polling booths, about what it means to be a real Liberal.”
Moderate MPs were buoyed by Ryan’s remarks and have since started pushing back against the conservatives and reasserting their authority. In a crisis meeting of Victorian MPs in Canberra, O’Dwyer – who is the Minister for Women – reportedly told colleagues the Liberals are now viewed as “homophobic, anti-women, climate-change deniers”.
Phelps, who recently missed out on preselection and will leave the NSW upper house, says the NSW Liberals have not gone down the culture war rabbit hole.
“Just stick with what you’re good at,” he advises. “What are liberals good at? Economic management, service delivery, keeping costs down, and law and order. Don’t get involved in things that may have grand ideological overtones but at the same time create internal dissension in your own party.”
Political historian Judith Brett believes the federal Liberal Party had put ideological conviction ahead of electoral success.
“It’s a tricky balance because we don’t want politicians who don’t stand for anything but on the other hand politicians are there to be representative, they have to carry the values and the experiences of a broad range of people into the Parliament. And if they only represent a very small group of believers they won’t get elected and they will wreck the party.”
Article source: http://smh.com.au/national/bali-volcano-anxious-wait-for-australians-amid-mount-agung-eruption-threat-20170925-gyok7q.html
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