The Liberal Party made history on Saturday, and not in a good way.
The Aston byelection was the first in more than a century that saw a sitting government win a seat from the opposition at a byelection.
The win in Aston for Labor’s Mary Doyle has all but obliterated the Liberal Party’s presence across Melbourne. The Liberals now hold just two seats: Deakin and Menzies. Both are held on the slimmest of margins.
A glance at the electoral map shows a vast picture of red, Labor-held seats across metropolitan Melbourne and a smattering of teal and green.
It points to a deep crisis within the Liberal Party.
After the weekend, it’s clear that its strategy over recent months to focus on cost-of-living issues, amid high inflation and interest rate rises, is not enough to convince voters in a “mortgage-belt” seat like Aston to vote for them.
So why has the Liberal Party lost touch with voters?
A move to the right
Former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull put it succinctly when he told Patricia Karvelas on Radio National this morning that the party had moved increasingly to the right, finding itself out of step with many people who would traditionally gravitate to the party.
“The Liberal Party in Victoria and its federal leadership is increasingly out of touch with the people whose votes they need to win elections. They’re egged on to do this by the Murdoch press, which is largely dictating nowadays the direction of the Liberal Party,” he said.
“They may have an audience big enough for Mr Murdoch to monetise but it’s not an audience big enough to win elections.”
Its “crown jewels” have been won by independents
The Liberal Party finds itself far from power while the wealthiest seats across Melbourne and Sydney are in the hands of “teal” independents. As has been noted by many commentators before, there is no longer a single federal seat that touches Sydney Harbour that is represented by the Liberal Party.
And in Melbourne, independents now hold as many seats as the Liberals.
The moderate faction of the Liberal Party has been demolished and under Dutton’s leadership, there’s been no sign that the Liberal Party is willing to show interest in issues like climate change that have been a focus for the independents.
Not engaging in the safeguard mechanism debate
If there was one, resounding message that voters made clear almost one year ago at the federal election, it was that climate change was a top priority across the country. Indeed, it was so top of mind that the Greens managed to win seats in metropolitan Brisbane from both major parties, ramping up their environment-focused presence in the House of Representatives.
Since the 2022 election, the Liberals have not engaged critically on the safeguard mechanism, the government’s central climate change policy. By choosing not to vote for the mechanism, or to even attempt to change it through amendments, the Liberal Party has made itself entirely irrelevant to any discussion about climate.
Their choice to bow out of the debate saw Labor looking to the Greens and independents in the Senate to get its legislation through – the Liberal Party did not come into the equation.
Peter Dutton’s image
Peter Dutton’s face was splashed across black and white posters used by Labor during the Aston byelection.
As Turnbull said, there’s a reason Labor chose to do that. For his entire political career, Dutton has been associated with the conservative, right wing of the Liberal Party, far from the centre where the Liberal Party is losing its voters.
There’s a real question of whether Dutton has the ability to bring the party back from the brink. Although, his leadership looks safe for the moment because the party has no viable leadership alternative.
On the ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday, Dutton gave no indication that the Party was about to step into a much needed period of reinvention.
A focus on fringe, culture war issues
The party has spent a solid decade lighting a fire under climate change denial and has recently spent a lot of time deep in the theatrics of culture war issues that do not speak to the vast majority of Australians.
The circus surrounding the Victorian Liberals and Moira Deeming’s attendance at an anti-transgender rally in recent weeks is an example.
“You get this madness that the party is being told by its media backers to move further and further to the right, focus on value issues, whether transgender kids or denying climate change, all of this craziness that has been infecting the party for years,” Turnbull said this morning.
“Those chickens are coming home to roost, it’s electoral catastrophe.”
The Liberals are yet to reckon with its treatment of women
Another key element that has seen the Liberal Party lose touch with voters is its treatment of women, particularly under Scott Morrison’s leadership.
The number of women elected to seats for the Liberal Party remains shockingly low. There are big problems when it comes to the party refusing to pre-select women as candidates in safe seats. Meanwhile, local branches continue to be dominated by older men.
There a deep structural problems that need to be addressed before the next election if the party wants to boost its representation of women in parliament.