I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the last few months.
To be clear my comments are based on being a political tragic and a keen amateur psephologist. I enjoy the statistics of electoral contests and the shifts in voter sentiment almost as much as the political argy bargy.
And they are framed by my political biases, no doubt. Then again, everything everyone ever writes is…anyhoo.
I think we are witnessing a major tectonic shift in politics in this country. Those shifts that aren’t immediately obvious, but become clear with the benefit of time and perspective.
As context, there have been ~3 tectonic shifts in the political firmament since Federation (there’s possibly 4, but I’m trying to be brief
).
The 1st one was the formation of the Liberal Party by Menzies (and the subsequent alliance with the Country Party, as it was known then). He stitched together the warring conservative and liberal groupings that was splitting the centre right/right vote into a party that was positioned as a “broad church” (as long as you were a middle aged white man of course
).
The tectonic shift was born through the desire of the Australian people after nearly half a century of turmoil and disruption for a steady as she goes approach. Menzies tapped into that mood cleverly.
It wasn’t clear at the time that an upstart party, formed by a formed PM, who’d been kicked out by his own party would have such an influence on the firmament of Australian politics, but it did – with momentous impact on the Labor movement (including the split in the ALP, fomented in large part by the execrable B.A Santamaria).
It led to the decline in influence of the Union Movement on the ALP (decades in the making) and created the splinter party the Greens (decades later).
The 2nd tectonic shift was the election of the ALP in 1983 (no not Gough), under Bob Hawke.
The ALP, having reconciled itself and consigning the DLP to the dustbin of history – deliberately shifted right and pursued free-market policies that would re-make the Australian economy forever. They cleverly argued (and proved) that they were the only party who could align the competing interests of business and the union movement into an accord to revolutionise the Australian economy.
The impacts of that shift are still being felt today – including a massive increase in the wealth of all Australians, and the rapid acceleration in the wealth gap between the richest and poorest Australians (we are seeing this today).
That consigned the Liberal and National Coalition to its longest period in opposition, and created the same schisms in the conservative side of politics as we saw with the Labor movement in the 50’s and 60’s
.
And I believe we are seeing our 3rd right now (possibly our 4th, if you count the election of Howard as the 3rd).
The main party of centre right politics has been hijacked by religious fundamentalists, who are fighting a massive war for the soul of the LNP. We’ve seen senior Executives (Teena McQueen) of the Liberal Party celebrate the loss of “moderate” liberals in the recent federal election.
As the Conservative Party lurches to the right they are being attacked by both the left and right of their
side of politics.
ONP and other reactionary parties are chipping away at the extreme right of the Liberal Party (note the populist National party has been able to maintain seats at this point), while well funded independents are smashing their way through the moderate faction (centre right) of the Liberal Party.
They’re losing their heartland seats to people that would’ve been members of the Liberal Party at some point (including two scions of Liberal party legends in Cheney and Spender), and having their margins eroded by ONP in rural and regional seats.
Meanwhile the Labor Party – after a brief dalliance with the far left under Shorten – have moved back to the centre of the political spectrum and are reaping the benefits of the disharmony in the Conservative movement. They are letting the Greens own the extreme left, while they focus on centre/centre left politics and policies.
Now, I could be wrong and the LNP are re-elected in every state and Federally within the next 10 years, but I don’t think so.
I think the LNP are out of touch with the electorate, promoting policies that aren’t relevant for a majority of the electorate, while ignoring policies that are.
They are trapped in an internal fight, which is visceral and unending.
I think the natural outcome of this, will be a new centre / centre right party that will seek to capture back the traditional heartland that is being abandoned by the LNP.
And this will take time. I think you will see centrist Governments in power for at least the next decade or two. (Btw I think the Labor party will lose in Qld, if the LNP lurches left and tries to capture the centre).
Anyway…sorry for rambling on, and I know most of you don’t give a fig, but this stuff is interesting to me.
