by JOHN RUDDICK – THE Right side of Australian politics is in crisis.
At recent State and federal elections the Liberals and Nationals shied away from any contentious debates … despite the reason for being in politics is to win contentious debates.
The Liberals and Nationals have somehow calculated that while that beige strategy failed in Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and federally … it’ll be a case of fifth time lucky in the coming NSW election.
- There isn’t a significant figure in the Liberal and National Parties prepared to cop Left-wing flak in defence of principle.
- One fix might be to ignore the Liberal and National Parties and start afresh – as Robert Menzies did in the mid-1940s.
- There’s a lot more energy amongst “minor Right” Party’s – they are the American equivalent of the MAGA movement.
Even if the Liberal/Nationals are returned to government it would hardly be a glorious victory as they are bending over backwards to be as inoffensive as possible to the Left-wing zeitgeist.
The Liberal Party is an almost 80-year-old Party. It has had dark days before … but not like this.
FIGHTBACK
In 1993 for example the Liberal Party lost their fifth election in a row but at least they lost with honour by campaigning on the FightBack! package.
The recent losses however have no honour because the Party’s strategy was to be like Labor and the Greens … but lean a smidgen to the Right.
How can we turn the tide of the dominant and regressive Left-wing agenda if we don’t have political leaders who champion small government and sane Right-of-centre values?
We need bold leadership and the Liberal and National Parties have abandoned their traditional values.
What’s worse is that there is not any significant figure in the Liberal and National Parties who is prepared to cop Left-wing flak in defence of principle.
So where to from here?
There are two strategies and they are not necessarily in conflict.
The first is for the membership of the Liberals and Nationals to fight for democratic reform within those Parties.
Democratic candidate selection will reflect the will of the membership and the membership is overwhelmingly sound.
IGNORING
This is a difficult path, however, as the NSW Liberals have seen. That Party’s rules were somewhat democratically reformed but then the “powers that be” always find an “emergency” that “justifies” ignoring a democratic preselection.
I wish those who want to continue that fight in the Liberal and National Parties all the best.
The other strategy is to ignore the Liberal and National Parties and start afresh – like Robert Menzies did in the mid-1940s.
At the 2022 federal election the “minor Party Right” won just over 12 per cent of the primary vote across the country.
That’s almost a quarter of the votes needed to form government and that was despite the corporate media all but ignoring them.
That 12 per cent will surely only grow from here if the Liberals and Nationals become increasingly indistinguishable from the Teal, Labor, Green alliance.
There is a lot more energy amongst the “minor Party Right” – we are the American equivalent of the MAGA movement in the United States.
To continue that US analogy, the Liberals and Nationals are the equivalent of the RINOs in the Republican Party.
The challenge the “minor Party Right’ has is that it is splintered. Had that 12 per cent been cast for one Party at the federal election we’d have six new senators and six more at the next federal election.
That would provide more senate clout than the Greens.
HOPE
The various minor Right Parties likely assume that one of them will emerge as the best hope to replace the Liberals and Nationals as the dominant Party of the Right.
That may happen and the Party best placed to do that is the Liberal Democrats – we are not a Party based around a personality but we are a Party based on unflinching principle.
But putting that aside, a fractured “minor Party Right” cannot have significant political power without closer cooperation.
The national interest insists we work closer together – perhaps we could remain separate Parties but agree to unite behind each Party’s strongest senate candidate in each State.
It’s hard to know how the next few years will unfold for the Right side of Australian politics but one thing is certain: activists on the Right need to roll up our sleeves.
The future prosperity and success of our great nation depends on it.PC
John Ruddick is the 2023 Liberal Democrats candidate for the NSW Legislative Council (Upper House).
The LDP and One Nation are champions of what is decent and functional, they are trying to stop Australia from losing its way, the nation owes these patriots a vote of thanks, and true liberals should regard them as allies, just as the liberals are in coalition with the National Party, which is also threatened by Woke. To date the LDP and One Nation have remained uncontaminated by that latter horrible atrophied malaise.
Disagree, Nick. The problem with the minor conservative parties is they rise briefly and then collapse after failing to maintain their rage. Time and again we see the likes of ALA, the Bernadi show and others similar become electorally extinct. Phon clings to life, but is going nowhere. There are only two franchises in Australia that win power, the ALP and the Coalition in its various forms. The rest are are also-rans and likely to remain so. Unless conservatives can influence the policy debate within the Coalition, they too will go nowhere.
I quite appreciate your perspective and argument Dagworth. It is sound. It is, sadly, backed by historical example. If however, we accept your reality, we are ruined. People are angry certainly. They are angry enough to avoid the Coalition parties in their droves. I have been a member of a party, but I would not join any of the current parties for all the proverbial tea in China. Why? I [singular] recognise the reality that I would have not a chance of effecting change from within. Unless thousands of likeminded people determined, in unison, to join say the Liberal Party, and shake it by the tail, the Party structures, inertia, factions, personalities, cowardice and so forth preclude real change. Of course it could be done – but it would require the concerted efforts by a massive turn around in party membership. That, I suggest is not going to happen.
What is required is leadership, direction and cohesion. A sad lesson from the Bernadi days is that it requires a large rump of existing conservative MPs to establish a formal conservative faction [as per the ALP] and, if necessary, to establish their own political entity. If more MPs had joined Bernadi it might well have been another story.
To this end, I propose my idea below of some sort of Conservative Congress to bring together the disparate conservative voices – including existing and putative MPs – to discuss the future in realpolitik terms.
Need to identify all those people in the Liberals who have any training from the WEF and put it out to the public.
Correct. The only thing to do is to merge with PHON and make Latham the new leader of NSW LNP. Victory will be assured. Oh, as well, disenfranchising kean. But here’s the problem: with albo and his merry band of commie alarmists showing at the federal level how destructive the ALP/greens are, Perrottet may squeeze out a victory and then there will be no incentive for the LNP to change course simply because the electorate sees them as less bad then the ALP/Greens
I agree with you totally Mr Ruddick, and good luck in the forthcoming election. I wish I could vote for you. The splintered nature of the minor right has always been a problem. Now has come the time to convene a Conservative Congress [or some such] in an endeavour to pull all these strings together. It is critical that we do so. We need a root and branch shake out of conservative politics. Sadly, it is my view the name ‘Liberal’ would have to go. The subtleties of trying to explain ‘classical liberalism’ won’t wash anymore. Liberal is now a dirty word. Period.
Now the time for action – who is going to take the initiative?