He promised a new website was on its way using "some of the best communication technology available" and that an as yet unnamed communications officer had been hired. Senator Cory Bernardi confided in former prime minister Tony Abbott. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen But when Fairfax Media put questions to his office this week about what his plans were for the nascent movement, and whether his 50,000-plus recruits had done anything more than register an interest, Senator Bernardi did not respond. More worrying for a number of his Liberal Party colleagues is that they have no idea where he is heading either. And their unease is growing. "The feeling is that these guys, led largely by Cory Bernardi, are ready to do something that is quasi-separate," said one senior Liberal this week.

"But what does that mean? No one really knows. I think he wants to create a political force and the starting point is the Tea Party-type potential in Australia. The big question is whether it's something that could ultimately split from the Liberal Party. That's the great fear. For someone who really wants to roll their sleeves up and try to harness that untapped conservative force, you don't actually have to do too much to do it, and the Liberal Party itself certainly isn't doing it." Malcolm Turnbull's government's has a wafer-thin one-seat majority in the lower house. Credit:James Brickwood Another senior Liberal source told Fairfax: "Time, effort and energy are going into it and there are some very confidential conversations that are happening at a federal level, with people discussing whether to embrace what Cory and others are putting together." This source says while there is growing recognition of the need to match the kind of activist network that GetUp! has achieved on the left of politics, there is confusion and disquiet over Bernardi's initiative. Preference whisperer Glenn Druery says the timing "would be perfect for a split". Credit:Andrew Meares

"Do we bring him into the tent or does he want to run his own race? And do you decouple it from the Liberal Party, or try and keep it under the Liberal brand? That's the critical question." Bernardi has made no secret of the fact that his Australian Conservatives are in large part a response to the July 2 election result, which he has branded a "disaster". Pauline Hanson's resurgent One Nation has bagged four Senate seats. Credit:AAP I kind of love fighting ... Yeah, in a metaphorical sense I love the battle as much as anything else. Senator Bernardi told journalist Sally Neighbour in 2011 Pauline Hanson's resurgent One Nation has bagged four Senate seats. And "over 1.7 million votes were cast for right-of-centre or conservative parties rather than the Liberal Party", he wrote in his July 6 blog post.

"From my perspective, that was the Liberal base expressing their unhappiness with past events ... The clear mission now is to bring people together for the good of the country. That is going to take the formalisation of a broad conservative movement," Bernardi said. So far his chosen battlegrounds are, as they have been in the past, overwhelmingly on social issues: pushing back against same-sex marriage, the Safe Schools program, and Islam's interface with the West. Bernardi will be stoking the fires of conservative resistance on all these fronts. In a blog post two weeks ago, he called on the government to rethink accepting extra 12,000 refugees from Iraq and Syria, and renewed his call for a ban on the burqa. Bernardi has twice left the Liberal frontbench: sacked by Malcolm Turnbull in 2009 for "disparaging" fellow South Australian Liberal Christopher Pyne, and resigning from the shadow ministry in 2012 after the furore over his linking same-sex marriage and bestiality. But as he told journalist Sally Neighbour in 2011: "I kind of love fighting ... Yeah, in a metaphorical sense I love the battle as much as anything else." It's not the first time there has been open speculation about whether he might leave the Liberal tent. He quashed it in June 2014, when he addressed the National Press Club in Canberra. Last December he declared, again: "I think people want to make the Liberals work." As recently as two days after the election, he was telling ABC's 7.30 that "what is best for the Australian people is a strong, cohesive and sound Liberal Party".

Still the subterranean talk of a possible splintering of conservatives from the main body of the party continues, driven by the shock of the election result and a deep sense of grievance among the religious right and their fellow conservatives who argue - as Abbott did on ABC's Four Corners this week - that the Liberal Party is being hollowed out by factionalism and careerism. ABC election analyst Antony Green says "there is clearly room in the Australian political spectrum for a party to the right of the Liberals, a right-wing version of the Greens" which could have a "serious impact in the Senate". And preference whisperer Glenn Druery - the man behind the stunning success of micro-parties in the Senate in 2013 - thinks a splinter conservative party "could potentially, if they're clever, pick up a Senate seat in every state and some lower house seats". "Certainly some of the drift to Hanson by the conservative right is because they see the Liberal Party has walked away from them," Druery adds. He points to the government's wafer-thin one-seat majority in the lower house: "As in life, so in politics - timing is everything, and with the numbers as they are now, the timing would be perfect for a split." A splinter party "would effectively be holding a conservative gun at the Liberal Party's head [because] the party would be obliged to accommodate their views on many issues".

Much as Bernardi appears to relish his semi-renegade status, he's an organiser as much as a "bomb thrower", concedes one party colleague. In 2009 he set up the Conservative Leadership Foundation, to nurture promising young right-wingers and promote "the development in each person of the virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance, faith, hope and charity." His latest brainchild, the Australian Conservatives, is billed as an "initiative" of the CLF, and both organisations appear to be headquartered at premises at 28 King William Street in the suburb of Kent Town, in his home town of Adelaide. Company and property records show the building, now named CLF House, was bought for a million dollars in February last year by Twenty-Eight KW Pty Ltd, a company owned by Bernardi and his wife, Sinead. As of last month, it carries a substantial mortgage of $750,000. Bernardi declined to answer questions about the ownership and acquisition of the property, including whether his company was receiving rent from any party. "The Senator has asked me to tell you that the only relevant information you need to know is that he has fully complied with his parliamentary obligations," a spokeswoman said. Asked specifically if any money from the Australian Conservatives was going towards funding the building, she replied: "Your questions are not related to the Senator's parliamentary responsibilities and he has no intention of discussing any non-parliamentary matters with you." Loading

The building appears well-equipped, boasting state-of-the-art audio and video production facilities, and the ability to host "around 120 students with theatre-style seating or upwards of 150 in a cocktail format". If nothing else, the significant investment it represents suggests Bernardi harbours substantial and long-term ambitions for his new political force.