Susan Sontag once wrote a serious and moving essay, Regarding the Pain of Others. Were the title to be used for a study of Saturday’s Aston byelection, it would consist entirely of “hahahah-ahahahahaha”. For anyone whose leftish heart is still beating even faintly, this was a good one. Folks in bars across Melbourne were watching the coverage on their phones.
The result turned early and turned strong, so the rest was pure sadism, full of hilarious moments. “I really, I don’t, I’m lost for words,” said Keith Wolahan, the boy-faced ex-soldier member for Menzies, on the ABC panel when they threw to him. When they came back from a cross to Antony Green, Wolahan was gone. On Sky News, Credlin was holding forth about the Abbott government to a court of tame men, the madwoman let down from the attic to talk about the rotten boroughs. “When Tony became opposition leader, we…”
Still televised, from the Rowville, uh, what was that — it looked the Liberal do was being held in a breeze-block changing room — Peter Dutton, down from Queensland, gave a terrible speech, his point being that the Liberal Party had at least held together, a modest aim indeed.
Losing candidate Roshena Campbell then gave a speech, and showed why she was. Cliched, stagey and self-regarding, she never connected during the campaign. People sussed her: Melbourne city councillor, Brunswick resident, barrister. Dropped in so the local party wouldn’t select yet another man (Emanuele Cicchiello; a local professional woman applicant, Ranjana Srivastava, was seen as too much of an unknown quantity), she comes off as an inner-city hip professional with a few centre-right economic opinions.
Did the Liberal centre have an inkling it might lose this? Apparently the very core did, but the wider penumbra did not, with passes to the Saturday night shindig being given out willy-nilly (when a loss is likely, the location becomes secret, like a speakeasy). And a possibility is that they consciously took the risk of dropping in a candidate like Campbell as a way of reconnecting to the teal seats.
Twenty-four hours later, some were trying to spin it. John Ferguson, the world’s oldest copy-boy, filed a rat-a-tat piece in The Australian that read as if he had dictated it from his phone at a pub bar to the world’s last copy-taker, noting, “This was an earthquake for the Liberal Party, but not as surprising as the political establishment is suggesting.”
Also in the Oz, the ever reliably wrong Tom Tomasevitch Switzerov reassured the faithful that things are not as bad as they look. The Liberal Party becomes a ruthless, focused organisation when it needs to be, Switzer noted. People were writing it off in 1993. What does it need to do? “Call out the corporates who act like social activists. Condemn the ‘sensitivity readers’ who censor children’s books.” Yep, that was all they were talking about at the Boronia Mall*.
OK, let’s stipulate that that’s a bit right. The Australian political system reproduces itself in a stable fashion because it’s designed to. Compulsory voting, exhaustive preferencing and public funding pegged to the primary vote ensure that a major party can keep going with almost no real membership at all, and that there is insufficient incentive for a real, right-down-the-middle split.
But that’s also a problem. It means that political decline never comes to the point of complete crisis, requiring resolution. The Aston result is truly dire. The vote was in part a rejection of Dutton as a leader, of the party’s reactionary position on climate change, of the candidate drop-in, and of some Anglo/European-descended preference for a non-Chinese candidate (like it or not).
But the Liberals could have kept Aston. If they’d run with a local candidate — doing retail politics, campaigning for the neglected middle-outer east, and making some dissenting noises on climate change, and also on the rush to war with China — they might have reversed the 8% swing against them in the 2022 election and made it the starting point of a fightback.
The trouble would have been finding a local candidate like that, given the state of the party branches and those willing to run. For the Liberal Party, holding an open preselection is now like tapping a ship’s biscuit: all that will come out are the weevils — the reactionary, conspiratorial, fundamentalist and resentful types now crowding out the party’s membership lists.
Losing Aston means the keystone has fallen out of the party’s outer-eastern realm. This was a contiguous five-seat bloc, stretching from Menzies and Deakin, starting around Doncaster and Ringwood, passing through Aston, and going to Latrobe and Casey, based around Melbourne’s very-outer suburbs and exurbs. In fact, it’s worse. Both Menzies and Deakin are on 1%, Casey on 3%, and only Latrobe, centred on Pakenham, is safe on a 60-40% margin.
This is all the Liberals have in Melbourne. All of it. The demographics are shifting too, with Menzies and Deakin becoming younger, less Anglo, less European, and the latter’s party apparatus centred around Michael Sukkar and the clownish sinister happy-clappy right. They are now open to challenge not only from Labor but from a suburban-styled community independent, less socially progressive than the teals but still in the sensible centre on climate change and the rest.
The Liberal Party of Australia, the actual Liberal Party, is now down to 25 seats in the 151-seat Parliament. The Liberal National Party, most of whose grunt and energy comes from its National core, has 21 seats. Yes, Australian lower house politics, post World War II, has become one of the most stable systems in the world. But there is surely a point, where smooth reproduction is interrupted to some degree that the force turns from centripetal to centrifugal, driving candidates away from the Liberal core, to run as “cerulean” independents — bluer than teal but more centrist than the party. Were that to occur, the right really could come apart, 1944 in reverse.
For those on the left, the loss in Aston holds out a glittering possibility. The Tasmanian Rockcliff government (it may change in the three hours before this is published) is on a 13-12 margin, and one of several members could always go independent. In the next election, the election there will be contested with 35 seats on five multi-member electorates of seven members each. The quota will be about 10,000. You could get a quoll elected.
Could we have the grand slam? Labor wins 2025, Tasmania falls, Queensland holds, and then, mirabile dictu, Labor takes the mayoralty of Brisbane, currently held by the right. That would leave the Liberal Party without branded government of any description in Australia, above some stray local councils. Once you’ve thought of this possibility, it is impossible to stop.
For the Liberals who aren’t crazies, this vote should affirm one thing. They should regard the 2025 election as lost, and most likely a reversal, and simply devote themselves to five years of the bloodiest, most relentless internal struggles to remove or limit the religious groups that have taken over core positions in the party. They should go full Trot, and regard actual national politics as a mere distraction from the real fight within.
They have no alternative. But they also have the luxury. Because let’s face it, while they may have lost the battle for the baubles, they’ve won the politics. The Albanese is a left-Howardist government, integrating a centre-right social order with a higher integration of the nation into a racially-based international alliance of AUKUS.
We won’t be reviving local industry, reversing iniquitous schools funding, or attacking the corrosive inequality of housing and superannuation that builds inequality day by day, putting anything resembling a social democratic country further out of reach. We lost the politics to get the power. Regarding the pain of others.
*Switzer hilariously repeats a common error, suggesting: “Meanwhile, the cultural left has made a ‘long march through the institutions’, unconsciously following the model laid out by Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci nearly a century ago.”
Two things. Firstly, Gramsci never said that. There is no record of it. A moment’s thought would tell you why. The phrase is a repurposing of Mao’s famous 1930s “long march”, and was used by German left leader Rudi Dutschke in 1967 to suggest an alternative strategy for the left, with no prospect of revolution. Secondly, what do you mean “unconsciously”? From the late 1970s onwards, the left and progressives have been very consciously pursuing this strategy. That’s where your Gramsci comes in. Progressives didn’t acquire this empire in a fit of absent-mindedness. Why does Switzer get this quote wrong and misunderstand what has occurred? Because he’s a little complacent and a little intellectually mediocre, and that is one of the right’s problems at the moment.
In all the Aston post-mortem commentary there seems to be at best, a significant understatement and at worst a glaring omission. And that’s the role of Scott Morrison.
Credit where credit’s due right? Australia should as one thank Morrison, for holding a mirror up to the nation, giving us a glimpse of how repugnant – i.e. smug, regressive, greedy, trans-phobic, racist, misogynist, obsequious, stupid, intolerant – we could be if we only tried.
All to the tune of April Sun in Cuba played, deaf of tone, on ukele, while feasting on raw chicken curry.
Here’s to you Scott.
May our memory of you never fade.
No-one has been so thoroughly “unpersonned” down the memory hole since Eric Blair’s opus.
Can anyone recall his being mentioned by COALition colleagues in the last 11 months?
His formerly loyal meretricious minions didn’t even await the cock crowing thrice before declaring no knowledge of him.
Not entirely true. They all – except one – rallied around their dear old pal Morrison and refused to support the censure motion a while back. They even put on a nice show of back-slapping, mateyness and bonhomie with him in parliament during the vote to underline just how much they like him. It was all as sincere and believable as Liberals can be.
I watched it, and, hoped to see the glint of a blade.
Nup, just a bunch of two-faced egotists slapping the back of the man who typified them all.
And yes, I laughed at the stupidity on display and the clear understanding of how they lacked the insight to understand that stealing from the poor is never OK.
…not mention ‘cowardly’ also: see Robodebt
I’m surprised the “Tudge Factor” never got a run……………..
…………even though he jumped before the electorate got a chance to give him the push, I have no doubt that a significant number wanted to make their opinion of him known (in the only way left to them).
My lasting memory of the time of the Aston campaign was the vacant stalls opposite during the reading of the Voice legislation in parliament. Dutton couldn’t even bother being present. But it seems everyone has their own favourite memory.
That reminds me of my little-known parody; ‘Take me to that lying scum near Maroubra, No, No, No’!!
This rabble of a Liberal Party and their supporters really seem even more stupid and unaware than previously thought!
Time to enjoy it but more importantly ensure that the “Labor” Government we now have uses the opportunity to bring about the changes that are so needed!
I suspect it will take a fair bit of prodding to get the Albo Govt to make the changes that are so needed.
I suspect Albanese is cruising along not wanting to raise the ire of either the LNP or Murdoch, waiting until the Lib really start in-fighting and the results of the US Court case comes out. That will de-fang both of those miserable institutions, which will free up this ALP Government to really start working.
Albo’s pack of neocons are incapable of turning loose their political masters in the fossil fuel, gambling, and real estate games, or as it transpires, the military-industrial complex.
Yep. Fatcat d!ck in every hole.
Here’s todays gold. “For the Liberal Party, holding an open preselection is now like tapping a ship’s biscuit: all that will come out are the weevils — the reactionary, conspiratorial, fundamentalist and resentful types now crowding out the party’s membership lists.” Thank you Guy.
For mine, that one is fighting with “You could get a quoll elected.” Here’s hoping.
Brilliant image, but it doesn’t explain poor misguided Ranjana Srivastava.
Yes I cannot understand her Lib candidacy either.
After watching Dutton’s interview with David Speers on Sunday it’s clear why the Liberals lost Aston. Dutton appeared non-plussed, offering no suggestions, no compromises to revive his party. The Liberal Party has no wish to change or progress, they have solely the motive to gain power, to rule. As is their right.
Dan Andrews summed them up ie: ‘Don’t pretend that you’ve got anything to offer other than your own insipid, nasty little version of bigotry.’
I don’t think it’s even about getting power any more. Dutton has made it clear that his focus is on keeping the party together. Which means appeasing the nutters, which in turn means forget about getting into power, who follow the delusional idea that their priorities match those of the Australian voters.
The Trumpian Right of the Liberals, which dominates the surviving rump of the party, take the lesson from the US Republicans that it is all about holding your base together. But Australia has no primary elections and we do have compulsory voting, so competing to see who can best appeal to a swivel-eyed loony ultra-conservative hard core of your “base” supporters is not decisive in this country.
PMSL, yes! Nailed it.
Blind leading the blind.
Firstly, no-one takes into account in any of the analysis I’ve read ( except on Twitter) re Aston the residual burning hatred of not just the Liberal party, but Josh Frydenberg in Victoria. And the hatred of the Herald Sun and how it played the lowest of low cards in our recent State election. How are these factors relevant, you ask? Well listen closely.
Roshena Campbell, (wife of James Campbell, ex-Liberal party media strategist and News Corp weekend political editor) was parachuted in by the Liberals to try to appeal to teal-type voters. However, once her connections to the despised Herald Sun and her association with Frydenberg as his “chosen one” ( since he was offered the pre-selection, which he declined because he, as a good born-to-ruler, is awaiting his chance to triumphantly retake “his” seat of Kooyong) were known, the writing was on the wall. Victorians have not forgiven Frydenberg for his choice to criticise his own state during the early pandemic, in favour of Morrison. Our resentment of the treatment we received by everyone is still simmering. Most people outside of Victoria do not understand the depth of the hurt our state suffered by the constant criticism of Andrews. And us, by extension. We proved that when we resoundingly returned him to the Premiership. It’s a factor no-one harshly critical of our lockdowns is willing to recognise. But it is still in play, believe me, as well as all the other factors which make the Liberals unelectable in Victoria, especially their culture war and Sinophobia. Plus the fact that Mary Doyle is a hugely relatable person representing a party and a PM who are currently incredibly popular.
I dont believe any of that for a second
You are entitled to your belief, Guy. But you’re wrong.
To the politically engaged, all of the above might apply. I imagine Guy is skeptical about how much of all this history the average voter in Aston who swung away from the libs is aware of and how decisive these considerations would have been given the current economic travails.
We, the bar-stool brigade, have it fundamentally sussed. The ‘bloody internal struggle’ of which Rundle speaks will have to include the retirement—forced or otherwise—of the complete Liberal parliamentary group and replacement with some gnostic heads (assuming Liberal ‘values’ [smirk] can change and be translated into prudent policy for other than just the big-end-of-town cohort). They seem still to not understand that whenever one of them appears on the telly or is interviewed on the wireless, that they fore-lose another squillion votes at whatever election will be next. ANYONE who was associated with the flagitious Abbott/Scumbo era (Trumbull too, but slightly less so) is achieving nothing other than topping-off their parliamentary super and other perks… they are certainly not doing anything to remediate the Liberal/LNC malaise. The unsophisticated banality of Aston reactions that speak of Labor having fought dirty by using unflattering images of Spud-Skull (show me the ‘flattering’ one) reveal their current limited intellect. There are numerous clods that could be thrown at Labor—both State and Federal (e.g. the funk around conducting tax reform and Albo’s treatment of Plibersek because of factorial and other internal fears)—but they at least seem to have retained SOME of the socially progressive scruples that ‘government for all the people’ requires. The Libs as currently constituted? Not at all.
The view from the pub…
“None so blind as will not see.”
Guy, you are coming from the position of being a member of the cohort that many have deserted because of its mendacity and refusal to move with the times. To ignore the consensus on twitter merely reinforces the point.
Can also look at more broadly at not just the Libs or LNP but the GOP & UK Tories from around the ’80s and have now entered a cud de scac.
They allowed themselves to be compromised for medium term success, channeling US fossil fuel linked think tank policies in return for broad media support in appealing to above median age voter (less educated & less diverse), but demographic change is catching up very quickly, even within rusted on Lib/LNP communities on sociocultural attitudes and diversity.
“…and have now entered a cud de scac.”
I like it, the half digested food regurgitated and further mangled by contented bovines. 😉
How an electorate feels is a possibly useful construct, but difficult to measure. But my feeling is that your idea possibly very important in Victoria. My knowledge of what News Ltd and Sky is saying about anything is largely through Media Watch and other commentary, but their attacks on Andrews amounted to the most extra-ordinary abuse. Dictator Dan? Really? Andrews presents as a Premier focussed on explicit outcomes. We know what he stands for. We don’t necessarily like all of it, but we approve of most of it. And I would say ‘we’ admired him for his Covid response, and ‘we’ probably did despise Frydenberg’s attempted point-scoring on that issue. I wonder if the extreme, not to say far-fetched nature of the right wing attacks on Andrews may actually have had a reverse effect. Such an unattractive apparent pile-on may have caused some revulsion in the electorate, resulting in a circling of the wagons around civility in a conservative portion of the electorate. Obviously there were other important factors, like the amazing Finn-Deeming show, but that unhinged attacks might have a reverse effect is an interesting thought.
I have no idea Guy, all I see is every State gone to Labor ( except Tassie) I see the poor old Mudraker and all the right wing zealots looking for a reason to blame everything and everyone else for why the Liberal brand is tarnished.
No Credibility Credlin is a sad indictment on why all things are so bad in Liberal land ( she still holds Mad Monk up as poster boy)
The Australian is a misnomer when it is so far right wing it could possibly not even spell ‘ honest journalism ‘ but I guess Mudraker news reporters, whether it be SKY or any of his rags have no idea on reporting honesty
But one of the delicious ironies of this is that Mudraker’s obsession with pushing the Liberals into RWNJ fairy-land is what is killing the Liberal Party, so there is some benefit in their pathetic propaganda masquerading as ‘journalism’.
Of course, the downside is that the same propaganda has been pushing Labor right-wards too.
Labor, given its roots and history can bounce back.
The only thing(s) the Liberals can bounce are credibility and cheques. And as cheques have been dying now for 50 years that’s an indicator of where and what they are.
How about, Peta Incredlin