by SEAN BURKE – THE high-profile campaign manager who brought Tony Abbott and NSW Premier Mike Baird into power has quit the Liberal Party saying it had “disconnected” from ordinary Australians.
Former Federal Electoral Council President and Condamine Branch President Walter Villatora said the Liberals had become radically ideological and were “entirely disconnected from the Australian people”.
- “Liberal Party run by backroom operators in the shadows.”
- Commits to launching a new conservative force in Australia.
- “We have to earn people’s respect.”
“I no longer believe the Liberals can be rehabilitated. I think it’s lost its way completely,” he told The Daily Telegraph newspaper this week.
“I think it’s entirely disconnected from the Australian people. This is exactly why Sir Robert Menzies started the Liberal Party.
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“The United Australia Party at the time had completely lost its way. It was entirely run by backroom operators in the shadows, which is what’s happened to us.”
Mr Villatora said he was now committed to launching a new conservative force in Australia and was only weeks away from registering the Reform Australia Party.
The Northern Beaches local resigned from the NSW Liberal Party last week after reports had emerged that he had registered a “Reform Australia” website domain.
The website had gathered a great deal attention from Liberal HQ, having been used to sign-up significant numbers of new Reform members.
Mr Villatora said that although Reform Australia shared similar conservative leanings as Nigel Farage’s Reform UK Party, they remained separate.
“We’re a completely different entity and operation here – we do happen to have a good relationship with Nigel and we would like to see him, I suppose, supportive in the future and to come out to Australia,” Mr Villatora told The Daily Telegraph.
“There’s no arrogance here. There’s nothing fanciful … I’m not Nigel Farage. I know his polling.
“I know the fact that in three days he had more members than the Tories. That’s not us. We have to really earn people’s respect.”
Mr Villatora said Reform Australia was in discussions with “high-profile Liberals” and “Liberal Party donors”.PC
The back roomers have ruined The Liberal Party. Shame on all of them and we all know who they are!!
Exactly what we need, another disillusioned conservative who thinks it’s a great idea to start another right of Centre party, what type of fools are they. If this bloke is fair dinkum his “values” are not a long way removed from One Nation. Offer your services to them to help build their structure into a real and dynamic force instead of giving this rotten Albanese government another free kick. As with that other first-class fool Palmer, put your financial clout behind One Nation without requesting any “favors” in return and help them become a force instead of helping Labor every time he opens his trap.
It’s TIME. A move that respects individual views and opinions and is not dominated by factional interests (as the Liberal Party has become).
NSW holds the largest number of federal seats and the wokes have a stranglehold on the NSW liberal party, obviating any return to power as the punters won’t wear them, especially with their pedophilia record. Why would families, who might want to join a normal party, want their kids anywhere near them!
Where to from here, given that cronyism and corruption killed the NSW libs a long time ago! It’s no use waiting for an enquiry to put them in prison, apropos Eddie Obeid et al, as the wheels of justice may take years to grind to an inexorable conclusion. There is a solution, albeit imperfect.
The Nationals rarely lose seats and already have a party structure in place, so NSW conservatives could come across, and stand candidates in outer city electorates on a much more appealing platform. Once the Nationals became the majority coalition party in NSW then we could simply park all the wokes and move on, as without us they’d struggle to win any seats, and they’d all be denied National Party membership, so obviating their time honoured party trick, which would be to morph across to poison the well. Their natural homes are the Greens and Labor left, and they will gravitate there to cause chaos if we make them, as they’d have nowhere else to go.
I voted for the Liberal Party all of my life until recent years when the rot set in, when Liberal In Name Only left of centre started interfering in party affairs and including selection of candidates previously selected by branch members in each electorate.
And following emails complaining that resulted in no response.
The Turnbull manouvering LINO left resulting in replacement of Brendan Nelson and then Tony Abbott and 2016 election result losses should have raised the red flag.
Sadly, this represents further fragmentation of the conservative vote, when – what is needed – is consolidation.
The sooner the ‘personalities’ get out of the way and the focus is on ‘policies’ not ‘populism’, and ‘self-interest’ gives way to ‘service’ and meeting the needs of Australians …the sooner centre-right politics will revive. We are lacking ‘leadership’ …not a conga line of ‘leaders’
Farage, Trump and Abbott were the right people in the right places at the right time… and look what we did to Tony Abbott!
I wish Reform Australia well, but it isn’t the answer. If it is the answer….then someone is asking the wrong question.
Never learn replacing moderates with moderates, all downhill from Turnbull & moderates treasonous backstabbing of a 14 seat majority PM. Look where they are now.