Australian Conservatives senator says he was given a ‘bigger megaphone’ when he was a Liberal party maverick

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Senator Cory Bernardi has claimed elements of the media are deliberately ignoring him since he split from the Liberal party to found the Australian Conservatives.

Bernardi told Sky News’ Outsiders on Sunday that the media had given him a “bigger megaphone” when he was a maverick or rebel in the Liberal party.

“That wasn’t making the changes necessary,” he said, defending his decision to quit the Liberals to form his own party in February. “There are elements of the media deliberately not giving us publicity or deliberately not calling us.

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“I don’t know how newspapers can do stories about [section] 18C [of the Racial Discrimination Act] and not want to talk to the person who’s introduced two bills to reform 18C.”

Asked whether it was dishonourable to defect after being elected as a Liberal, Bernardi said he could “perfectly understand” the criticism.

“The question is: do you maintain the status quo? Everything changed after the last election. A million votes ran away from the Liberal party, and they’re not coming back.”

Bernardi said that he decided to leave the Liberal party to give voters a “principled and credible alternative” so they were not “abandoned” to vote for other crossbench parties.

He ruled out returning to the Liberal party, even if there were a change of leadership. “I don’t think the majority of disgruntled people will go back. [Leadership] is a transient thing, that’s a personality thing.

“What’s happened is the Liberal party has become corrupted. New South Wales is a closed shop, you cannot have discussion, you cannot have debate, you get thrown out if you dare criticise anyone.”

Asked to play word association with various public figures, Bernardi described Pauline Hanson as “resilient” and the Nationals leader, Barnaby Joyce, as “a good friend”.

Bernardi accepted that Joyce is conservative but said he was “constrained by being the deputy prime minister”.

He described Malcolm Turnbull only as “prime minister”. He said he was not a conservative and “probably” a centrist. “But, you know, I found him respectful, I’m going to give him full marks for that.”

Recalling his resistance in 2008 to Turnbull’s plan to support Labor’s emissions trading scheme when the Coalition was in opposition, Bernardi credited his former colleagues Joyce, the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, the employment minister, Michaelia Cash, and the communications minister, Mitch Fifield, for changing the opposition’s direction.

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Bernardi reiterated his comments at the merger of Australian Conservatives and Family First that his party is “not about an individual” but the whole conservative community.

“We have to bring people into the tent because the left are very good at working together for the outcomes they want ... conservatives are generally much more individualistic.”

Bernardi said the Liberal party was supposed to be a “big tent” held up by the “oak pillars” of free enterprise, family and freedom. “Unfortunately, into the tent crept some termites and they’ve been gnawing away for a decade or more now.”

He said the party had been swept away by the “winds of populism” because it was not anchored by principles. He described his party as “a house built on strong foundations”.

“It’s going to welcome everybody who wants to be a part of the movement, but we’re laying that brick by brick.”