Despite the Liberals having wheeled out John Howard in several state and federal election campaigns without any great effect, his political legacy and views still loom large, both in terms of policy and analysis.
The former prime minister was a big fan of describing Victoria as the Massachusetts of Australian politics — a progressive political island with different values than the rest of Australia, and atypical and therefore a place where uniform political lessons couldn’t be drawn from a loss.
But the facts of the Liberals’ byelection loss in the federal seat of Aston suggest it’s not Victoria that is the political aberration at odds with the Australian population — it is the party’s politics, more particularly the views of its conservative wing, noxious to almost all states bar Queensland.
Firstly, Aston is no Massachusetts. It’s not an inner-metro seat like Higgins — the domicile of Howard’s political hero Menzies now held by Labor and stalked by teals. No, Aston is zone three, the home of Kenworth trucks, the suburb where yoga studios end and karate dojos begin.
Not only are the Liberals losing in heartland seats like Higgins by running down or running interference on climate change — or failing to discipline the nasty culture warriors in their party — but they are also losing in the outer ring where they imagine they align more closely on values.
The Liberals seem pathologically fixated on wedge issues and culture wars, taking their lead from vile media commentators and cretins from the toxic swamplands of social media. But as Aston has revealed, cost-of-living policies and important issues like climate change matter to ordinary people. They are not interested nor motivated by culture issues.
It’s one thing to get beaten up federally by voters in inner-metro seats — long since insulted as latte-sipping wankers by conservative media blowhards, despite the Liberals needing to win them over to form government. But to be eclipsed in the outer suburbs on cost-of-living issues and climate action is a serious concern and an utter repudiation of the toxic culture war politics — such as on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament or climate change denial — that many conservative commentators are asking the party to ramp up on.
It’s the high-level political branding that matters here, not the state of the Victorian executive nor whether the wishes of local branch members are being adhered to. And that high-level branding is utterly polluted by people like Matt Canavan, Moira Deeming, Peta Credlin or Prue MacSween who want a Trumpian Party — Australian voters don’t.
The Liberal Party is in a hostage situation. It has nosedived federally in Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia, and as a result, the awful politics of Queensland conservatives that helped lead the LNP to federal defeat is now even more predominant. This claque of conservative Queenslanders now appears to dictate the party’s direction and is going to send them over a cliff.
Conservative messaging is not landing with key demographics such as millennials and Gen Z, who political analyst Kos Samaras suggests will soon comprise 45% of the voting population — professional women, migrant groups, workers and middle-class voters concerned about the planet. In metropolitan seats, where continued population growth will be overwhelmingly concentrated, Labor won 36.35% of the federal vote, the Greens 14.03%, and the Liberals 33.02%.
Dutton’s task as he sees it is to hold the party together. That’s not a strategy, and it’s a recipe for continued irrelevance and decline. Talking out of both sides of your mouth and trying to reconcile contradictory philosophies and policies means the Liberal Party is refusing to draw a line in the sand, neither disciplining its extreme elements, nor outlining its philosophical position as a small-l liberal, rather than conservative, party.
The federal party is in a pincer — outflanked in metro seats across Australia by teals and Labor and outpointed on economic issues by Labor in outer suburbs where cost of living, not culture wars, is king. The swamp of social media is no guide to the real concerns of most punters.
The clawback of votes in the recent NSW election to the Liberals is a good outcome after three terms of office. The party managed to hold off the teals in critical metro seats thanks to progressive policy in the areas of the environment, pokies, and other social issues. Their brand held up well in those circumstances and should be the model the federal party looks to for renewal.
Otherwise, they can expect to keep losing the votes of sensible people while it chases the dark culture war fantasies of conservative windbags.
The Right of the Liberal party are seriously out of touch.. They still think basic decency towards LGBTQIA people is the preserve of left wingers… they seem to think the working class (to them, lower class) are latent racist, homophobic, misogynists that can be whipped up into a hateful rage to blindly follow Conservative extremists. obviously, they’re not.
Basically they think they can go Trumpist. But Australia isn’t the US.
We don’t have the freedom to not vote.
Yes you do. Just get your name crossed off and leave
Here we have it. The “trans” thing is not an issue that matters a heap to most people. If they think of it at all, it is to hope that trans people can be treated respectfully and allowed to get on with their lives in peace and quiet. Not many people lie awake at night thinking about trans, LGBT etc etc, issues.
Somehow the LNP have chosen to die on a hill on this issue, which, while important, is still a fringe issue.
They have a string of issues like this, where their attitude rubs normal decent people up the wrong way. This translates into electoral defeat. It’s pretty simple, unless you have chosen to die on a hill.
Indeed and they don’t recognise the basic decency of the Australian population
More a ditch.
They tried to reel in a outsider as did Labor in NSW, someone who is so different from the ppl who live in Aston and who in there right mind would vote for Dutton ( Mr Negativity) the nay sayer on everything a policy void.
As for wheeling out John Howard ( I liked that analogy) he is as archaic as Stone Henge and probably as thick as those rocks.
Every time old Johnny pops up another seat falls, I think the Mad Monk ( Abbott) had a bit to say on Aston also
Geez, John Howard and Tony Abbott, what a winning combination NOT. As for bringing in an outsider, that may not be a capital offence in the right circumstances but bringing in the wife of one of Murdoch’s nasty warriors was.
Yeah I knew there was a tie in there somewhere, I just was not sure if she was married to a Liberal stooge or somehow had an influencer that put her forwards.
Thanks for clearing that up.
There are people voting now who weren’t even in primary school when Howard was last Prime Minister.
Also, correction required. Higgins was the domicile of Harold Holt. Menzies was from Kooyong.
Menzies represented the Kooyong electorate, but his home was in Haverbrack Avenue, Malvern.
Oddly enough, Menzies retired from politics poorer than when he entered parliament. This is such a contrast with subsequent PMs for whom office appeared to be a golden ticket. The house in Haverbrack Avenue was bought for Menzies by a subscription of wealthy Liberal Party supporters as a gift for him when he retired – he had nowhere to move to after he moved out of the Lodge. Again, such a contrast with the current PM, who appears to have plenty of addresses.
I think Menzies didnt actually have a home for most of his time in parliament. He lived in the Lodge in Canberra for 25 years. When he finally retired he didnt actually have a home to go to. He was homeless until a few mates bought him a house.
At least he didn’t live at Kirribilli, which does look a beautiful place to live – a pity it reinforces the idea that Sydney IS Australia.
That is interesting, and I appreciate the clarification. Given the absence of a home, I wonder where Menzies was enrolled for electoral purposes. Anyone know?
Well said. I’d add that they seem to have no thoughts of their own even about culture wars – often adopting whatever is a la mode among RWNJs in the USA, regardless of whether it has any meaning in Australia.
John Howard is like the preserved body of Jeremy Bentham. Wheeled out at important occasions, but nothing to say, and a failure to convince anyone in the long run.
Will the Liberals embalm Howard when he dies like the Russians did with Lenin? They could still wheel him out on election day, to either scare Laborites away or galvanise conservatives. They could even fit his trolley with a coal fired steam engine!
The eyebrows will keep growing, I suspect, even after he carks it.
Very badly preserved………….
…….he exudes a foetid miasma of the charnel house.