Her refusal to apologise for her comments has carried a kind of logic. Most of the demands from some of her colleagues that she apologise are prompted by a desire for the controversy to end. But she is a modern populist. For her, what’s most important is what she says when she gets riffing about the terrible state of things, especially if her supporters think that too. And they’ll probably think that because she does. It’s a circular relationship. Liberal deputy leader Ted O’Brien was right when he said on Wednesday that an apology from Price would seem inauthentic to the public.
For all her troubles in the past eight days, she would certainly still be more popular among the Coalition rank and file than her leader. Ley’s card was marked early in this term when she was labelled as a moderate and at her first appearance at the National Press Club when she began by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land. Price’s strategy of digging in and refusing to apologise has intensified the focus on Ley. You know it’s reached an absurd stage when there’s pressure on Ley to apologise on Price’s behalf. It was Price who uttered the conspiracist nonsense, not Ley.
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And while that’s gone on, others with an axe to grind, like Jane Hume, dumped from the frontbench by Ley, have offered a view. Hume says the whole thing has been poorly handled by Ley. It’s important to remember that in May, Price’s stocks were so high that she was enticed from the National Party and nearly ran on a leadership ticket with Angus Taylor that fell just three votes short of victory. For Ley, there’s more trouble ahead.
Price is likely to still be the darling of the grey hairs who make up most of the party membership, but her demotion is just part of trying times for her too. Two years ago almost to the day, she told the National Press Club that overall, British settlement had benefited Indigenous people because now they had running water and readily available food. Her speech received a standing ovation from her party colleagues, including Nationals leader David Littleproud, who described it as one of the most powerful he had ever heard. Asked this week if he would welcome Price back to his party, he demurred, saying that her comments were “outside mainstream Australian values” and he wouldn’t be encouraging talk of her return. His meaning was clear: it was up to the Liberals to work out how to handle her now.
