It must have been quite a time at Liberal HQ last weekend as Peter Dutton’s team attempted to steady the ship. It felt like a Harvey Norman crazy end-of-year sale. Policies? Candidates? All stocks must go! Working from home? Not a problem. Cutting 41,000 public service jobs? Not any more.
The great policy fire sale was all in aid of de-Trumpifying the Liberal leader, as it became clear that being like Donald J. Trump was a ticket to oblivion. Dutton can try to run from Trump but, as Murray Hogarth’s analysis showed, he can’t run from the reality of 2025 that the Liberal Party is a party of the hard right, with no room for moderates. That internal fight is done for the moment. So what remains?
In its crazy sales weekend, the Dutton team was aghast to discover that one of its NSW candidates, Benjamin Britton, opposed “beautiful” women serving in combat roles in the defence force. Britton, a former soldier, had also claimed that “diversity and equity quotas, Marxist ideology and woke ideologies” were undermining Australian security. His views apparently went against party policy so he was out (not before firing a few shots at the party leadership.) It was meant to be the end of candidate chaos. Instead it was just the beginning.
There’s a bear in there
There is a Fawlty Towers aspect to the Liberal Party on these occasions. Britton was replaced by another bloke, Nathaniel Smith. As a former NSW MP and the CEO of the respectably titled Master Plumbers’ Association, Smith looked to be the goods. It would soon emerge, though, that he inhabits the far right end of the party. As The Politics reported, Smith’s father, Greg Smith, a former NSW Liberal attorney-general, is a member of the Catholic right with strong anti-abortion views.
Then more. Renew Economy revealed that Smith was an ardent Trump supporter and one of those behind a pro-gas industry astroturf campaign. Sources also told Renew Economy that while a state MP, Smith had kept a large stuffed bear made in the image of Trump in his office and stickers on his office fridge read “All aboard the Trump train!”. In his maiden speech to the NSW Parliament in 2019,he outlined his views on “political correctness” and “Marxist brainwashing” of students. In Harvey Norman terms, the Smith-Britton swap was akin to a like-for-like replacement.
From bad to worse
The bad news kept on coming. In Queensland, Jeremy Neal, the LNP candidate in Leichhardt, apologised after controversial posts he had made on China (a “grub of a country”) and “feminists” resurfaced. Neal had also reportedly described Victoria as a “fascist state” that would have made Italian dictator Benito Mussolini “proud”. He put it down to a case of trauma caused by his frontline work during COVID times.
In NSW, reports emerged that Liberal candidate Scott Yung, running in Bennelong, had addressed a casino high-roller allegedly linked to the Chinese Communist Party as “brother” in Mandarin, and had thanked him for organising a lunar new year event in Sydney. Yung had claimed to have no association with the controversial figure.
Crashing the party
Also in NSW, it was reported that Liberal candidate for Barton Fiona Douskou, who connects Australian businesses with the Saudi government, had argued that the country was as safe for women as any other in the world, while praising Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as a “game-changer”.
All this occurred in the same week that Liberal Party members launched a class action against the state’s head office over its extraordinary failure last year to lodge papers on time for candidates in local government elections.
So what does all this say about the state of Dutton’s party? We might reasonably wonder how it was not aware of the views of Britton, Neal et al. They were all there on the public record. That would go to a case of incompetence. The obvious counter, of course, is that the Libs were aware but didn’t see a problem — until they became public when being MAGA was suddenly unfashionable. And that goes squarely to the ideology at the core of the party in its present form.
And they still maintain that they are the better managers to put it kindly I would not trust them to organize a chook raffle in a pub.
Or even a piss-up!
Potato has always been a dope who paid for support.
AMA said worst health minister ever.
Now he’s front and centre with a bunch of dopes behind him as he in true Colonel clusyerfluffer says “follow me boys:
Sigh ALP with an increased majority
I don’t believe any of this crew would spot a Marxist if they sidled up to them singing the Internationale with a copy of the Manifesto in their hand. But I do remember that at primary school we would argue forever about whether the modern state was indeed a condensate of class relations…before going off for a game of tag.
To be honest, Paul, I’m not sure there are many lefties left (sorry) who could still sing The Internationale (I think I could still manage the first verse from memory, but it’s been a while…)
That’s not the only thing Scott Yung has done that goes against ‘decent’ behaviour; this morning he was handing out Easter eggs outside a local school! He’s a blow-in planted in the Bennelong electorate to attract the Chinese vote. Let’s hope they have the sense to select a genuinely local candidate.
Menzies must be continuously turning in his grave !!
He sure would be! The lnp are nothing like what he set it out to be.
Margaret Brown,
The current member for Bennelong is Labor Jerome Laxale, MP who has lived in Bennelong for approximately 30
years. AEC has put Scott Yung as no 1 on the Ballot paper for Bennelong
The AEC does not decide how candidates are listed on a ballot paper. The position of candidates on ballot papers is determined by a draw ‘from a hat’ as it were – ie, the luck of the draw.
Scott Yung has the number 1 position on the ballot paper because his name was drawn first.
Quite right Pamla Pemberton… they put little balls in a cage, blindfold the (ad hoc) person who pulls out the numbers assigned to candidates, and it’s all fair and above board.
America would be in much less of a pickle if only they had the AEC to manage their elections!!!
Margaret Brown,
The current member for Bennelong is Labor Jerome Laxale. He went to Kings School, has a degree in economics from the University of NSW. He was a former Mayor of Ryde. He narrowly defeated Liberal Tom Kennedy at the last federal election
Adam Bandt summed-up it up well. Keep Dutton out of The Lodge at all costs and put the squeeze on the ALP to rejig our subservient relationship with America and hitch our wagon to a leadership role in Asia.
With the balance of power in the next parliament The Greens should have a big say in Australia’s future direction. Carving out a position of the party of renters and aspiring first home buyers – in excess of thirty percent of the electorate – is a very canny place to put themselves. It will resonate well with a skittish electorate, as will their popular free dental addition to Medicare, funded, in large part, by getting the big-end-of-town to pay their ‘fair share’ of taxes.
On the critical housing aspect, Bandt’s line about the major parties continuing to assist more, those investors who own more than one property than those struggling to gain a foothold into their first house. Restraint on ‘over the top’ rent increases will also attract voters.
The last thing our country needs is a blocking protest party with the balance of power. We need a majority Labor government that can represent and protect Australia on the international stage
Like the impotent timid one we have? No we can do decidedly better with a minority government if all behave like adults. Will ALP behave like adults is the biggest question. Or form a gang with Coalition whenever it suits to stymie progress, as with electoral donations.
Albo is the best PM we have had,bar none, what this man has had to put up with is unbelievable..
The MSM, Murdoch sewerage and RWNJs, not one other PM has had this sort of crap constantly like Albo has..
Majority for Labor ☝️..
Unfortunately that is also the one which wimps out on climate change, environment, effective NACC, tax reform etc etc. what happened to bold.
I totally agree John. The Labor party have become exasperating wimps, afraid to make the hard decisions that we desperately need.
When are they going to remember the old saying ‘you can’t please everyone all of the time’, especially when making decisions that will benefit everyone in the long run.
I have given up on them, now vote for independents and the Greens, hoping that they will get the balance of the power . Somebody has to keep their eyes on the big picture, eg. CLIMATE CHANGE
All this shit coming down on a party brimming with half wits is not at all surprising.I suspect the stenographers of the propaganda wing will be burning the midnight oil in order to rescue the hapless captain of team Titanic,who unerringly keeps lining up icebergs.Man the lifeboats chaps,men and cowards first’.
The goons would have killed for a script like this.
Sorry, Harry – even Milligan in full flight could not have come up with a script like this! Just when you think things can’t get worse, another utterly predictable crisis staggers out of the woodwork. And they claim to be more capable of running the country …
Do you remember that Goons episode when Neddy protests “Little does he know, I’m as sane as the next fellow!” only to have Eccles mutter in the background “Little does HE know, I’m the next fellow.”
Hang on, isn’t that the script for contemporary Liberal preselection?
Even boofhead doesn’t believe the rubbish he’s been told to say….Gina has very scratchy texting.But apparently,he’ll do or say anything to get to get a property on the Harbour.
A space after a comma, and two after a full stop Harry.
🙌
Sorry, I have an impediment in my expression .
😅
The latest standard is one after a full stop too.
I love esoteric edit details! The origin of using two spaces between sentences was on typewriters. Double spacing made it easier to see the beginning of new sentences when writing with typewriters. But this practice is no longer needed on computers, which automatically use proportionally spaced fonts.
Sorry … I went off topic 🫣
Hardly a surprising outcome when you sling out anyone with a whiff of moderation &/or brains to replace them with bigots, religious nutcases, grifters and cookers.
Time to call in Peta. …and Ita, to vet the guest list.
Yung is even deeper in the doodoo. The education have issued a formal complaint after he was caught handing out Easter eggs to children outside a school.
He said it was so he could tell their parents how to vote.
Not even remotely creepy according to the liberals.
Is Potato Head using a reverse ‘scorched earth’ strategy? A self destruction to gain a sympathy vote?
Canny
Ah, the scary “Marxist ideology”… hardly anyone knows what it is, but they talk about it. Few have read Marx, most didn’t and just repeat what others, who also didn’t read it told them about it. And usually it’s nonsense . But apparently it’s a great tool to use for ignorant people to scare the bejesus out of those suffering from fear of things they know nothing about. It’s ‘woke’ and it’s ‘communism’ – booh!
I went to an inner-city Catholic private girls school in the 1960s-1970s. I would occasionally make a detour to my bus stop after school to the Little Red Bookshop where I browsed the literature on Marxism. I was enthralled!
My poor mother had to listen to my hyper-enthusiasm as I regaled her with what I’d read (like all 16 year old girls at the time, I treated my mother as tabula rasa).
I’m 70 years old now. I miss my teenage (we didn’t say ‘adolescent’ back then) innocence, enthusiasms, and utopian hopes for a better world.
Dutton has no moral core let alone a vision for who we could be.
So, given the inevitable links between Liberals Noalition and their fan base, what does that say about Executive Management (ASX/CEO’s) in this country?
Next time someone drops the word socialist ask them for a definition.
You’ll be rewarded.
Isn’t that someone who goes to a lot of socials organised by the Liberals???
Yes