Despite this, and with an election looming, the pursuit of the base remains the most consistently articulated concern of the party’s conservative faction. The problem for the Liberal Party is that nobody outside the party’s right - and its media cheerleaders - seems to be quite sure who that base is and what it might want. Worse, even if such a thing could be defined and somehow secured there is no real evidence that having it onside would somehow drive the party to victory in a general election. If there is such a thing as Liberal base, argues the pollster John Stirton, the easiest definition of it would be that group of people that has historically backed the Liberal Party even at its lowest ebbs: the diehards. But this group of around 30 per cent of the primary vote is probably in a constant state of flux, says Stirton. And even if it was a discrete cohort, one that could be reached with a consistent message, it would be voting for the Liberal Party in any event. “Successful leaders are those who can close in the middle ground,” he says. “If your base is too excited, you are probably not going to win the majority.”

In any event, the rise of the base in political rhetoric is particularly dangerous for the Liberal Party, says Stirton, because, of all modern parties, it demonstrably has no such thing. In Robert Menzies’ famous words, the Liberal Party was to serve “the forgotten people”, those not represented by trade unions and those not to be found “either in great luxury hotels and the petty gossip of so-called fashionable suburbs”. Then prime minister Robert Menzies in 1965. Credit:R. L. Stewart Menzies’ Liberal Party was to be socially progressive and economically dry, hence Howard’s rhetoric of the broad church and his effective appeal not only to traditional conservatives but to the so-called Howard battlers. During the recent coup the term “base” was co-opted by the Liberal Party’s conservative wing to mean, says Stirton, “those people who agree with me”. Or, bluntly, the party’s right wing. One Liberal insider described this group this week not as conservative, but as reactionary.

It is not hard to find evidence for Stirton’s point. The plotter’s leader of choice was Peter Dutton, a man best known for articulating the right’s various hard lines. In his maiden speech Dutton sought to recast Menzies own words. “The fight for a better place in which to live is today made even more difficult for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that the boisterous minority and the politically correct seem to have a disproportionate say in public debate today,” he said. The plotter’s leader of choice was Peter Dutton. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen “The silent majority, the forgotten people - or the aspirational voter of our generation, as some like to term them - are fed up with bodies like the Civil Liberties Council and the Refugee Action Collective, and certainly the dictatorship of the trade union movement.” Over the years Dutton came to embody the right in his position on asylum seekers and in his vigorous contempt for climate science.

As the faction grew more frustrated with both Turnbull’s centrism and his failure to dominate Labor in polling, Dutton’s champions made plain their claim for the base. “Fundamentally … in order to win elections, you have to start by securing your base, and reaching out across the spectrum, to a broad cross-section of the community, but it is very, very difficult to win elections, without your traditional supporters behind you, and that is one of the reasons, that a number of people have come to the conclusion that Peter Dutton is the best man to lead us,” the ACT Senator Zed Seselja told ABC’s 7.30 program days before the coup. Loading "You can't win an election without your base. It's a called a base for a reason and you build on it with other parts of the community, but you need to listen to your traditional supporters." Seselja’s view - and that of his conservative colleagues - held firm even though support for Dutton was demonstrably limited. In an Essential poll conducted in April, Dutton was the preferred choice of Liberal leader of just 3 per cent of respondents, trailing Turnbull on 24 per cent, and “Someone Else” on 14 per cent. Just 4 per cent of Liberal voters backed him.

Even in the wake of the bloodletting, prominent advocates of a return to a hardline have continued in their advocacy of base politics. Hours after Turnbull narrowly survived the Dutton challenge in August, the conservative commentator Janet Albrechtsen wrote, “This is not over. There is unfinished business in the Liberal Party that guarantees another leadership spill. The rising damp of the wets in the party has left the joint with dodgy foundations. Until that is fixed, the Liberal Party will crumble further, unable to define itself, prosecute policy or win an election. She went on to observe that, “Turnbull is decidedly more ABC than Sky News. And though he will say speaking with Leigh Sales rather than, say, Paul Murray is all about audience reach, Turnbull should be brave enough and smart enough to reach out to both audiences. Murray’s audience is where Turnbull needs to make a mark. When you lose the base, it’s clear that you have lost your philosophical bearings.” Turnbull might be more ABC than Sky News, but so is Australia. While Turnbull was favouring Leigh Sales over Paul Murray, her nightly audience was around 600,000 and his was less than 60,000. A similar gulf can be found between those self-identifying as the Liberal base and the opinions of the broader Australian public. While Tony Abbott opposed gay marriage, 61 per cent of Australians supported it, including 75 per cent of voters in Abbott’s own seat. While the hardliners oppose action on climate change to keep faith with what they call the base, 58 per cent of Australians see it is as a “critical threat” according to a recent Lowy Institute poll, while 84 per cent want the government to focus on renewable energy even if it costs more.

So why are the hardliners defending the base at such political cost? The Liberal Party may have learned the wrong lessons from Tony Abbott’s 2013 victory, says John Stirton. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Stirton points to two factors. He believes many may have learned the wrong lessons from Abbott’s victory over Kevin Rudd in 2013. While it is understood by many of his supporters in the party to have been a win secured by the maintenance of a conservative hardline, Stirton believes it could also have been due to Abbott’s effective communication and clarity in the face of a weak government. Secondly, he believes that many in the parliamentary party are no longer acting in their political self-interest, rather they are wedded to views that are becoming increasingly unpopular, much as parts of the Labor party were during their years in the wilderness. “They truly believe that gay marriage is wrong,” he says. “They would rather be ideologically pure in opposition than compromised in government.”

Moderate Liberals have been flagging similar concerns. Senator Dean Smith told Fairfax Media this week he feared that the party risked losing touch with key demographics, particularly young voters. “In all this discussion of the base, people have overlooked the fact that with our compulsory voting system we need to win the vote from the centre right,” he said. He notes some people appear to have misread the success of US President Donald Trump’s rhetorical flamboyance, noting that American politicians do need to “narrow cast” to their political base simply to motivate them to turn up to the polls. Emulating Trump’s style has “limited utility in Australia”, he says. The political historian Judith Brett sees another trend in play. Like Stirton she believes that the term “base” is used too loosely, and often as a rhetorical tool to silence dissent. If such a thing did exist, she says, one working reasonable definition of it might be the card-carrying members, those foot soldiers who turn up to polling booths and help the party win elections. Though the major parties are coy about membership it is clear that it has been declining for both parties for many years. She estimates Liberal Party membership to be around 50,000.

This leaves the Labor Party with an advantage, says Brett, because it can turn to the union movement for practical support during elections. In response the Liberal Party has been turning to church groups to fill the gaps. People brought up in the church, says Brett, make ideal political recruits. They are used to joining community events, to offering their time to support a common cause, and to public advocacy. Former prime minister John Howard appealed to traditional conservatives and the so-called Howard battlers. Credit:AAP Professor Marion Maddox, author of God Under Howard, says this trend is clear but hard to quantify. She agrees that there are more practising Christians in the Liberal Party - and in the Labor Party - than in the general population and more again in parliament. This trend, Brett and Maddox note, could be drawing the party to the right and redefining its base. An investigation by Fairfax Media earlier this year found that members of the Mormon church were making a concerted effort to take control of parts of the Victorian Liberal Party machine, securing nearly 13 per cent of key positions within the party’s organisational wing, while making up just 0.3 per cent of all Australians.