Rash predictions about the fate of political parties are often made in the fury of a roiling leadership storm. But this crisis really does raise questions about the purpose of the Liberal party and what, if anything, it stands for.

I don’t often agree with the executive director of the Institute of Public Affairs, John Roskam, but I think he is right to say the Liberal party is facing an existential crisis. (We still disagree over what they should do about it).

The conservatives laying siege to Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership have an incoherent list of complaints and demands, many of which the prime minister has met as he tries to cling to his job and keep the so-called “broad church” together – even though most of them make little sense when measured against facts or the complainants’ desired outcomes.

Morrison denies he is the 'consensus candidate' in leadership tussle – politics live Read more

Turnbull has, as we know, abandoned several workable climate and energy policies and then ditched the emissions reduction part of his final version because so many conservatives said they would cross the floor rather than vote for it. He dutifully repeated Tony Abbott’s line that he was now only interested in power prices, even though he must have known that abandoning the policy would create the kind of investment uncertainty that inevitably pushes prices up, and even if he didn’t, a horrified business community quickly told him.

But, of course, the conservative climate sceptics were still not appeased. They want Australia to withdraw from the Paris agreement or reduce our target (the one Abbott actually proposed as prime minister).

They claim this would have some impact on Australian power prices (it wouldn’t), ask why we should do something when Donald Trump has withdrawn (it can’t happen until after his first term) and trot out the sceptics’ well-worn argument that one country’s efforts cannot change global warming in isolation, which even a school child could understand leads quickly to no one ever doing anything (this seems to be getting to the point).

As well as incorrectly stating these actions would lead to lower power prices, the conservatives assert they will appeal to the Coalition’s “base”, except polls shows 56% of Australians think the government is doing too little to combat climate change and a strong majority of Liberal voters want it to implement a credible policy.

In her letter to the PM resigning from the ministry, Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells said the same-sex marriage vote was also corrosive of the base. That would be Abbott’s proposed plebiscite, which Turnbull adopted as policy despite having himself argued it was pointless and unnecessary. That would be the plebiscite that was overwhelmingly carried – with the yes vote prevailing nationally and in every state, and the no vote succeeding in only five Liberal or National held electorates. This must be a pretty narrow base the conservatives are talking about.

Let’s do this: the speech Turnbull could have made to save his dignity | Dom Knight Read more

Conservative columnist Janet Albrechtsen complains that Turnbull is more “ABC than Sky news” and should spend more time talking to Paul Murray Live (audience around 36,000 per night) than Leigh Sales on 7.30 (audience around 600,000 per night).



The right wants to significantly cut immigration, something Peter Dutton has already succeeded in doing to an extent, and a policy the treasurer Scott Morrison has already explained would hit economic growth, a view backed by business and state governments.

Dutton’s only real policy promise to date is to take the GST off electricity bills – something Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm tried to do last year before he was shut down by Turnbull and Morrison who patiently explained this would cost the states $2bn a year, resulting in cuts to hospitals and schools or increases in state taxes like payroll tax.



That this was the best Dutton could come up with shows pretty clearly this isn’t about a considered ideological policy agenda. And claims that it is about saving the Coalition from defeat at the next election seem strange given polls show he’s neither well known, nor popular. He’s even had to start a rapid makeover campaign with interviews, mid-leadership campaign, focusing in the first instance on convincing voters he is able to smile.

What the right really seems to like about Dutton is that he has been willing to run with the culture wars, not just having a debate about population, but whistling out loud about African gangs making restaurant dining unsafe and attacking refugees on Manus and Nauru for allegedly wearing Armani and spending their time “enjoying themselves … by the beach”.

'Enough is enough': how Australian newspapers reacted to leadership spill Read more

The evidence suggests this insurrection is not about preserving the Liberal party as a broad church, or slightly course correcting from a moderate tilt to a conservative tilt, or rebalancing between economic liberalism and social conservatism. It is about an internal shift to follow the global trend towards the nativist far right.

If the “broad church” Liberals go along with it, they will find themselves in a very narrow Liberal party indeed – one that looks a lot more like One Nation with slightly more professional marketing. Is that really what they want to be?