Labor set to win next election

Two key events over recent weeks have not received the media attention they deserve.

While Sussan Ley's resignation from Parliament secured a lot of notice, her stated reason, that she wanted to give her successor "clear air", was not widely called out. Ley even said that "there were no hard feelings against Taylor". Angus Taylor, the new Liberal leader, said little to dispute this narrative, preferring to instead pretend that the pair were still cordial, and that the party was now united under his leadership.

Even less attention was given to the statement from Raissa Butkowski (the Liberal Party's endorsed candidate to succeed Ley in the seat of Farrer) that "she had reached out to Sussan" but that Ley never responded. Butkowski played the issue down. "I also think that she deserves a well-earned break," she said.

The Liberals are playing the public as fools, but voters are not buying it. The reality is that (in defeat) Ley has, figuratively speaking, thrown her party and its candidate under a bus. The public realise this, and the taxpayer is also being hit with an estimated $3.3 million in needless by-election costs.

The right thing for Ley to have done by her party and by the taxpayer would have been to see out her term! Everyone knows that the last thing the Liberal Party needed after its divisive and drawn-out leadership contest was a by-election. Ley's actions have selfish vindictiveness written all over them.

No one fully knows who Ley would like to see win the coming by-election. Ley's actions, however, can only help non-Liberal candidates, particularly independent Michelle Millthorpe. Millthorpe is often described as a "Teal" or "linked to Climate 200", though she plays this down. The latest betting indicates that the by-election is a two horse race between (narrow favourite) Millthorpe and One Nation. Labor is not running a candidate, and other parties are all outsiders. The market thinks that the Liberals at 9:1are near certain to lose the seat.

More broadly, the split between the conservative and the wet/moderate wing of the Liberal Party remains raw and very bitter. The conservatives acted as spoilers when Ley was leader, and all the indications are that the "moderates" (or at least some of them) will do the same to Taylor.

While the conservatives have finally had a win federally with Taylor, the same is not true in the states. A huge issue also is that, despite a lot of "moderates" losing their seats at the last federal election, up to half of remaining sitting Liberal federal parliamentarians are "moderates". A core of these is believed to prefer seeing the Liberals lose rather than endure the conservative wing gaining any further control. The identity of these Liberal parliamentarians is widely known, and lists of leading "moderates" are even published on Wikipediaand otherinternet sites.

The Liberal "moderates" are a faction that tends to be "progressive" on economic, social, and environmental issues. They have traditionally represented well-heeled (especially city) seats or are in the Senate, and compete against the Liberal Party's historically dominant faction, its Conservative wing. The ascendancy of "moderates" (federally) began in 2015 when Malcolm Turnbull deposedTony Abbott as PM.

The "moderates" are currently the dominant Liberal faction in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania. Kellie Sloane (the New South Wales Opposition Leader), Jeremy Rockliff (the current Tasmanian Premier), Jess Wilson (the Victorian Opposition Leader), and Ashton Hurn (the South Australia Opposition Leader) are all "moderates". Prominent "moderates" in New South Wales included former premiers Gladys Berejiklian, Barry O'Farrell and Mike Baird. Matt Kean (former Deputy Leader) and Susan Ley have also been well-known "moderates".

Both wings of the Liberal Party have been accused of branch stacking and other irregularities, though the "moderates" have been more successful. This has led to calls from conservatives for federal intervention, especially in NSW and Victoria.

The Victorian Liberal Party recently dumped conservative MP, Moira Deeming, from its upper house ticket for Victoria's November election after a tense preselection battle. This outcome was described by one prominent Liberal as a "gift to the Labor Party" and led to outrage from the conservative wing. Subsequently, after some adverse publicity, the winning candidate withdrew his candidacy. Moira Deeming secured unanimous Liberal Party endorsement after her rivals withdrew from a second preselection contest.

Division over Net Zero and energy policies have been at the heart of the Liberal Party's problems in recent years. On the one hand, the "moderates" (and the Teals, many of whom are former Liberals) support Net Zero, often with near religious fervour. The conservatives on the other hand strongly believe that reliance on expensive and intermittent solar and wind generation, and turning the nation's back on coal, oil, and gas is leading to Australia's economic demise and to an unstable electricity grid.

While public opinion within centre-right politics, as demonstrated in the polls, may be shifting to the right (particularly to One Nation), the tide is only slowly changing. Decisive changes in public opinion may not fully happen without a major crisis (e.g. rationing of fuels, electricity blackouts). It will take a pivotal resolution of public opinion on these issues to end Liberal infighting and settle arguments about the merits of "renewables".

Besides the bitter split within the Liberals, there are also acrimonious feelings between the Liberals and Nationals, and between the Coalition partners and One Nation.

The on-again off-again split in the Coalition, largely initiated by the Nationals, further divided the Opposition and contributed to the demise of Sussan Ley. Ironically, because Ley's leadership collapsed first, the more recent election of Matt Canavan as National's leader was too late to prevent support for the party leaking to One Nation.

One Nation's strength has been its policy consistency over time. It has always been against Net Zero, high government spending and high immigration levels, which are of increasing concern among electors. Conservative voters felt they had nowhere else to go when Ley and Littleproud were at the helm.

One Nation, however, also has problems of its own, which may affect the durability of its support.

Pauline Hanson does not come across as Prime Minister material, and her support base is concentrated in regional areas. Diplomacy has never been her long suit, and early in her career she was guilty of intemperate comments about immigration, which greatly offended Australians of Asian descent. One Nation's early economic policies, like 2% Easytax, were also regarded as simplistic.

Hanson's more recent public statements hostile to immigration have potential to turn-off foreign university students. While some of our education industry has been used as a backdoor way of getting a work visa or permanent residence, genuine students provide billions in revenue (built up over decades) that may easily be scared away by antagonistic political comments.

While Hanson has become politically smarter, she is also showing her age and in recent years has increasingly suffered visible stress. Both Hanson and her offsider, Barnaby Joyce, had seemed to be in the twilight of their political careers, except that the problems of the Coalition provided an unexpected resurgence. Joyce himself had suffered a lot of reputational damage from scandals related to his personal life. There were also calls for him to resign from parliament after an incident, where he was found lying on his back in a Canberra street, allegedly mumbling profanities into his phone.

Egos always play an important role in delaying the inevitable and, for a change of government to eventuate, Hanson probably needs to curb her ambitions. Leaders often attempt to stay on past their use-by dates, and one-person-dominated parties generally die with their founders. While One Nation has gained increasing support in regional areas, it is unlikely to win much in the way of seats in the cities.

Bob Hawke once famously remarked that "if you can't govern yourself, you can't govern the country." For the conservative side of politics to have any hope of winning the next election there needs to be strong cooperation between the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation. There is a strong history of enmity between Hanson and the Liberal Party, going right back to the days when John Howard was PM. This will be very hard to overcome. There may be more hope of some sort of reconciliation with the Nationals because Matt Canavan and Barnaby Joyce seemingly are still on good terms.

While electors may have increasing worries about the Labor Party, its generally astute political judgment is in little doubt. Labor is revelling in the opposition's current disunity, and, while this continues, Labor can be expected to just wait and watch. If the opposition starts to get its act together or (more likely) if the political headwinds develop, a lot of people expect Labor to call an early election. The most likely outcome of such an early election is big losses to the Coalition, a swing to One Nation, and a Labor victory.

The worsening oil situation and the increasing likelihood of an international recession might bring forward such a prospect. Only a major recession or other calamity in Australia (like critical fuel shortages) is capable of shocking some naive and gullible voters back into the Coalition camp.

Labor is unlikely to do anything of substance to alleviate the current liquid energy crisis, impending shortages of gas, and threats to the electricity grid, because the party is wedded to wind and solar. For ideological reasons it is also unlikely to deal with Australia's rising debt levels, while its industrial relations policies bode ill for the economy, particularly sectors like mining and construction.

One wonders what further "progressive" policies Labor would introduce, if granted another term, and how bad the economy could get. My suspicion is that we might see further new taxes (maybe on wealth), continued bracket creep, a further worsening of debts, and a high-cost and unstable energy sector that will take decades to turn around. All this could cause an eventual major plunge in Labor's popularity, and its electoral losses could then (timing perhaps around the end of 2029) easily be greater than the losses suffered by the Whitlam government in 1975.