The Great Liberal Split of 2025

Angus Taylor and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price were the Liberal Party's last hope.

Today will go down in history as the beginning of the end for the Liberals. Why would you bother voting for them when you can just vote Labor? At least Labor wins elections.

This has nothing to do with gender, and it is all about the dysfunctional NSW Liberals. Indeed, Angus Taylor might be in serious trouble if the last exclusive in the Daily Telegraph is anything to go by.

Conservatives are now starved for choice. There is a clear divide between One Nation and Gerard Rennick supporters. Calls for a conservative unity ticket are misguided – the Liberal Party was that very unity ticket that conservatives are now dreaming of.

In the Unfiltered newsletter, Alexandra Marshall wrote:

I don’t know about you, but I’m electioned out. So, today’s related comments are brief. Sussan Ley beat Angus Taylor for the Liberal leadership yesterday by not much. She is the first female Liberal federal leader: good for her. But her leadership debut was underwhelming, and her quarter-century as an MP doesn’t reveal what absolute convictions she holds. I give her till Christmas next year – at the latest – to shape up the Liberals and get some real centre-right policy out there to prove to anti-Labor voters there’s hope. Otherwise, Taylor and the ambitious likes of hyper-confident Tim Wilson will be breathing hard down her neck. Then again, the thing about having low expectations about someone is that can clear them fairly easily. I doubt she can do even that, but Michael de Percy is even more blunt about her election and what it means.

My opinion piece in The Spectator Australia, The Great Liberal Split of 2025.

Michael de Percy: "Today will go down in history as the beginning of the end for the Liberals."

Turnbull and Morrison's lurch to the left and support for energy vandalism is largely responsible for the unravelling of Menzies’ legacy.https://t.co/yBZBO7sFqN

— The Spectator Australia (@SpectatorOz) May 13, 2025

Reform Oz? One Nation or bust

I think I am done with the Uniparty

The success of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party is dominating conservative thinking in Australia. Some see Gerard Rennick as the leader of such a movement, but with his pending defeat by One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts in the Senate, Rennick has been unable to do what Pauline Hanson did after she was disendorsed by the Liberal Party in 1996.

If there is any chance of a Reform Oz party, it would be via One Nation, but it couldn’t do so with the moniker ‘Pauline Hanson’s One Nation’.

My opinion piece in The Spectator Australia, Reform Oz? One Nation or bust.

If we are to have a Reform Oz movement in Australia, it won’t come from the Coalition.

Nor will it come from Gerard Rennick or the Libertarians.

If there was ever a party that could achieve what Nigel Farage did, it would be @OneNationAus.https://t.co/L2iltuMyW0

— The Spectator Australia (@SpectatorOz) May 12, 2025

Littleproud paves the way for Ley-Wilson Wokefest

Canavan was a missed opportunity for the Nationals.

The National Party had a chance to give conservatives a sense of dignity by electing Matt Canavan as their new leader. Instead, we will get more of the same. This will embolden the Liberal left (I can’t believe such a term even exists) against Angus Taylor and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. The worst outcome will be a Sussan Ley-Tim Wilson win tomorrow. I think that will spell the end of the Coalition as we know it.

In the Morning Double Shot newsletter, Terry Barnes wrote:

Bunfight at the OK Tearooms. Yes, that was an episode of The Goodies. But it could just as well be the Liberal party room this morning, when leadership contenders Angus Taylor and Sussan Ley may as well shoot clotted cream and tomato sauce at each other, as neither have any real policy ideas. As stated yesterday, I have no confidence whatsoever in either of them to bind party wounds, start on developing costed and funded sensible centre-right policy nor, indeed, drag the Liberals back to the sensible centre-right zone where most voters tend to congregate if they have a viable choice. Michael de Percy shares my pessimism about Ley at least, especially after Matt Canavan went down to David Littleproud in yesterday’s leadership ballot for the Nationals. My expectation is Ley will just have the numbers, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Tim Wilson, having ruled out a leadership tilt because ‘it’s not my time’ (ie, ‘I don’t have the numbers’) pops up as Ley’s deputy, defeating Jacinta Price. The ultra-ambitious Wilson will hitch himself to a dud if he does that, but that’s his call.

In the Unfiltered newsletter, Alexandra Marshall wrote:

That dream was a dying gasp, nothing more, from a Coalition that has spent all of its time and money listening to people who want it to lose. Sometimes it’s tempting to believe that the Coalition doesn’t want to win. I’ve heard that repeated by our readers. That, like their Victorian state counterparts, they enjoy being curled up in the corner of Parliament like cats with no responsibility and endless free meals. I’m not so sure I believe that anymore. Rather, perhaps the situation is more serious, and the federal Coalition believe their ideas are good and that victory lies in chasing voters to the left. If they win they reach socialism first, they can form government. But who would that be a victory for?

My opinion piece in The Spectator Australia, Littleproud paves the way for Ley-Wilson Wokefest. 

Speaking after his re-election as leader, David Littleproud said:

‘I’m proud of our achievements over the last three years, the last three years where I think we set the policy agenda.’https://t.co/voMJyefTpv

— The Spectator Australia (@SpectatorOz) May 12, 2025