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Whoever emerges from the former Coalition’s current death spiral, the winners surely cannot survive the long internecine battle that lies ahead until the 2028 federal election.
In power or out of power, Australia’s major political parties seem addicted to leadership challenges. Their irregular top-dog clashes feed the media’s need for drama, paper over policy failures and treat voters like they have short memories and think of politics as personality contests.
Labor went through five changes of leader before Kevin Rudd managed to defeat John Howard in 2007. Once in government, Labor liked the turmoil so much it dumped Rudd for Julia Gillard, then futilely retreated to Rudd. The Liberals caught the same disease and went through Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull before alighting on Scott Morrison.
But since the stability of Morrison and Peter Dutton, the Coalition has been backsliding into division.
The most recent schism occurred ostensibly because three Nationals senators broke shadow cabinet solidarity and voted against hate speech laws introduced to parliament last week by the Albanese government following the Bondi Beach terrorist shootings.
Then, National Party leader David Littleproud had the temerity to suggest a change of Liberal leadership would be a good idea because his party could not serve under Sussan Ley. Littleproud is now being challenged for his own leadership by quixotic Queensland Nationals MP Colin Boyce.
The Nationals managed to retain most of their seats in the May federal election, but there have since been three defections and, with polls showing One Nation feeding on former Nationals voters, the internal brawl has more to do with keeping Pauline Hanson at bay.
However, the Nationals’ turmoil has also leached into the Liberals.
Right-wingers Andrew Hastie and Angus Taylor met on Thursday to discuss a deal to replace Ley, but the Herald’s chief political correspondent Paul Sakkal reports it ended in a stalemate, for the moment.
Exactly why the pair are in a rush to beat up on Ley is a mystery.
The Coalition split came on the eve of the national day of mourning to remember the Bondi victims. And now, plotting to replace a leader on the day of the funeral of party stalwart Katie Allen is a new low in Australian politics.
Ley has endured constant backroom sniping since becoming leader. Now it seems she has been blamed for being unable to keep the Coalition intact, despite National MPs deciding to break cabinet solidarity. Her would-be challengers appear to have forgotten the source of Liberal problems with voters. Ley was elected to lead a moribund party that sorely needed to attract voters – and more specifically women – back from the teals and other parties camped in the Liberal heartland.
The message is clearly not getting through to one wannabe leader: Hastie chose to stay at the male-only Athenaeum Club when he flew to Melbourne to meet Taylor and attend the funeral of Allen, a former Liberal MP.
Some think the leadership of Ley, a moderate, is doomed. Hastie and Taylor may have a vision of saving the Liberal heartland by veering right. But with Labor well in control so far out from a federal election, changing leader feels like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic and affords little confidence in the political acumen of the Liberals.
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