There have been interesting stirrings in the conservative hemisphere of Australian politics over the past few months. One of these stirrings involves a media outlet called the Rebel.



If you’ve not heard of the Rebel, you can think of it as Canada’s Breitbart News – the far-right news outlet that was central to Donald Trump’s fortunes in the US presidential race. I’ve heard whispers around the traps over the last little while that the Rebel is considering setting up an Australian operation.

To try to get to the bottom of the speculation, I emailed Ezra Levant, who describes himself as Rebel Commander. His bio on his site cheerfully notes: “In 2014, Ezra was chosen as the most irritating Canadian by the Globe and Mail’s TV critic.”

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I asked Levant whether it was true the Rebel was planning an expansion down under. He didn’t confirm anything but he certainly didn’t deny it. “You’ll just have to watch and find out along with everyone else!” he said.

While we are all waiting and watching, I can share a bit of history. When the Liberal senator Cory Bernardi went to America on his secondment to the United Nations earlier this year, he got a ringside seat on the Trump insurgency. He watched the operation carefully, and met a number of useful people.

He also made time to have a chat with the Rebel while he was at the UN.

According to the Rebel’s subsequent report, the UN had banned journalists from the news site from reporting the international climate conference in Morocco. The Rebel had raised a petition in protest, which it delivered to New York. Bernardi told the news site – in one of those far-right chats where everyone agrees with everyone else – that some UN delegates felt “almost bullied into complying” with resolutions.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Cory Bernardi, agreeing with Ezra Levant.

It doesn’t really matter who agreed with whom, or what the line of inquiry was about, let’s just note the contact between the far-right website and the senator who keeps flirting with breaking away from the Liberal party and forming his own conservative political movement in Australia.

Any modern political insurgency requires an internet strategy, and while the establishment media market in Australia is dominated by News Corp Australia, which obviously leans right, we don’t really have a Breitbart equivalent in Australia.

There’s a market opening for a first mover. So let’s just call that contact in New York between Bernardi and the Rebel interesting.

Also interesting is one last pre-Christmas threat from the LNP’s George Christensen. He took to Facebook on Thursday to kick the prime minister (which is not the interesting part – these days the government’s internals are so surly you can find any number of people happy to do that). The interesting part was the explicit mention of other groups he could join, but probably wouldn’t, if Malcolm was a good lad.

A Christmas message from George Christensen.

Hint hint, Malcolm.

And, of course, there’s no show without punch. Another Christmas message, from a former prime minister, currently in Israel, for what it’s worth.

Tony Abbott (@TonyAbbottMHR) To be strong & united, the Liberal Party cannot take the base for granted & must convincingly argue for its values & principles.

Right now it is impossible to say with certainty whether Bernardi will part ways with the Liberal party in 2017, either solo, or with company, because he’s not saying.

He’s being coy. As Santa might say, ho ho ho.

Some of the current static in the conservative hemisphere pre-Christmas may have nothing whatever to do with portending a breakout as the opening political chapter of 2017, it might just reflect continuing internal restiveness about the government’s current less-than-stellar political fortunes.

So I repeat, I do not know whether Bernardi will stay where he is and keep being the government’s in-house maverick, or jump ship.

No idea. Underlined.

But my end-of-year instinct, for what it’s worth, is he will strike out with his new venture, and if he does, I think this would be a good development for Australian politics.

I think this would be a good development for the following reasons.

All year I’ve been writing that the Liberal party room exhibits the largest ideological spectrum we’ve seen inside the party for some time. There are capital C conservatives and small L liberals. If you are a prime minister living in fractious and febrile political times, and you have very limited internal authority, it is hard to bridge the differences convincingly.

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Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister has made every effort possible to accommodate the internal spectrum of views. He has, in his own fashion, tried to lead in collegiate fashion, at considerable cost to his own personal standing. His approval ratings have nosedived.

He governs exactly like a prime minister in minority government, except all the internal deals aren’t transparent to the public.

When Julia Gillard presided over the minority parliament between 2010 and 2013, she negotiated a bunch of agreements with crossbenchers that were in the public domain.

Turnbull right now is hostage to the whims of colleagues with only minimum levels of transparency. Anyone who has watched federal politics over the last 12 months will know this looks like death by a thousand cuts.

So a splinter movement of conservatives could, if it works, hit pause on the rolling right-left struggles within the government. It would free the Liberal party up to be a genuine party of liberalism – not a party of reactionary populism with a conservative bent.

A split would, if it happens, and if it succeeds, be no less complicated than the current split in the progressive vote between Labor and the Greens.

The ALP would dearly like to take its left flank back and boost its primary vote, but not at the cost of a reverse takeover, which is, essentially, what we are seeing with the Jeremy Corbyn phenomenon in the UK.

Similarly in Australia, conservatives are attempting to engineer a reverse takeover of the Liberal party which leads to running internal conflict, and the deeply unconvincing situation of a political centrist – Turnbull – being the figurehead of a government mouthing a bunch of positions that explicitly contradict his own past beliefs and actions.

Quite apart from freeing the Liberal party, and allowing the opportunity for it to remain explicitly a party of the political centre – a conservative movement would offer more choice to voters who are increasingly expressing either exhaustion or disgust with Australia’s two-party system.

Democracies are highly competitive places. It would have to fight for its place in the spectrum.

Representative politics has to be responsive to the desires of the community, and political movements have to represent the cross-section of views that exist in the electorate.

I’ve said before I like the current parliament, because it is genuinely representative, from hard right to hard left, and a representative parliament has some prospect of keeping voters engaged with their democracy, which in my book is a positive thing.

The hegemony of the major parties declines every election cycle. Voters are looking for a different kind of politics.

For my last major reporting assignment for 2016, I spent a few days outside Canberra talking to voters who have parted ways with the major parties because they don’t feel connected to the process.

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They are searching for democratic political representation that validates their views, that sticks up for their interests, and is quantifiably different from the tone and temper of the major parties.

They want Australian politics to be different, and they are voting with their feet.

So if Bernardi wants to sail forth with his own homegrown insurgency and connect with a group of voters who feel marginalised, and compete for public support, good luck to him.

If it makes life more complicated for major party politics, or for the current government, which barely clings to power, so be it.

In politics, as in life, you reap what you sow.