Comment

John Hewson
The path to an electable Coalition

The Liberal and National parties have agreed to give the relationship another go but at a worrying cost. Disunity is now a significant challenge for the new Coalition, both within each party and between them, compounded by the recent allocation of portfolios. David Littleproud’s leadership is under serious threat due to the way he ignored his Nationals party room in precipitating the temporary divorce, and judging by the grumbling of those excluded from the ministry, such as former leaders Michael McCormack and Barnaby Joyce.

The trial separation of the parties was a disastrous farce. It was apparently initiated with a captain’s call – that is, before Littleproud had sought the support of his party room – in a meeting with the new Liberal Party leader Sussan Ley. He was seeking a commitment to stick with what he called four key “principles” – which could be more accurately described as prejudices – relating to policies the Coalition had taken to the last election.

This was part of the farce, but not a humorous part. In my experience, the Coalition agreement was traditionally focused less on policy than on the management of head-to-head electoral contests and portfolio aspirations. The latter had tended to be the contentious part, as the Nationals always wanted the portfolios of agriculture, trade, transport and resources – and at times infrastructure, or some other form of party slush fund.

Recognising that the Nationals’ agenda was a significant factor in their election drubbing, Ley had wanted time to review their demands before signing a new Coalition agreement. Clearly she was right to attempt to stop the “tail wagging the dog”. The Nationals’ so-called policies were little better than brain farts or, at best, aspirations, in the absence of essential detail as to how they would be funded, implemented and managed moving forward.

In a sense, the Nationals are lucky to have been granted a reprieve for their stunt of threatening to break up the Coalition, rather than having to live with the full consequences of their actions. That would have meant sitting on the cross benches, falling short of the numbers to qualify as a minority party in the Senate – ironically with the same numbers as Pauline Hanson’s One Nation – and having to operate with reduced salaries and lesser staff entitlements, travel benefits and the like. This would have seen them rapidly lose any relevance to our government processes. The prospect obviously worried some Nationals, as evidenced by the letter of concern from their Senate leader, Bridget McKenzie, to the Liberal Senate leader, Michaelia Cash, after the defection of Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, and the reported attempts to encourage one of the independents to switch to join the Nationals to give them the party status they need.

The Nationals have long been agrarian socialists in their eagerness to privatise their gains and socialise their losses, but more recently they are better described as policy mavericks, driven by personal interests and their perception of what their voters want, rather than the national interest. They find it difficult to be team players, accepting the necessary discipline, compromises and trade-offs.

As to the shadow ministry, Sussan Ley is to be congratulated on her careful balancing act, having the courage to drop the conspicuous non-performers from both parties, to recognise the better Nationals and inject some new blood. However, there was a bit of a stench around so-called factional paybacks and elevations. Dare I raise the issue of merit based on qualifications and relevant experience to do the jobs assigned? Clearly, Angus Taylor had to be demoted. He failed, as shadow treasurer, to land a blow on his counterpart Jim Chalmers, and to provide any policy detail on an alternative economic and cost-of-living strategy to back up the myth he was propagating about the Coalition being better economic managers. Of course there are also the uncomfortable revelations that he had been white-anting Peter Dutton during the campaign – hardly a team player. This should have come as no surprise given his pedestrian performance in government as energy minister. But to give him the defence portfolio, at a time when this issue will undoubtedly be of dominant importance, just boggles the mind.

Similarly, appointing Price in support of him to the defence industry portfolio, again with zero qualifications or experience, is a risky move given the Coalition’s performance in the recent election. The announcement of a big-spending defence “strategy”, worth $21 billion, without any detail of how that money would be spent or financed, and no priorities, was mystifying. The defence debate is becoming absolutely ridiculous, both here and globally, with the focus on spending relative to GDP, ignoring the need to consider expected means and outcomes.

The key question about the shadow ministry is whether it is sustainable. Those excluded cannot keep carping and whingeing from the backbench, being disruptive rather than constructive, ego-driven rather than giving priority to what’s good for the country. The ambitions of Taylor, Price, Tim Wilson, Jane Hume and Sarah Henderson cannot be ignored. Wilson will probably go back to his old game of pretending to be the leader of the “progressives”. This was never a reality, given his background at conservative free-market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs, and as he made no contribution to substantive debate on the key issues of climate, discrimination and integrity in government.

Wilson has been parading around claiming to be a template for reclaiming a seat from the teals, having won Goldstein from Zoe Daniel by a mere 175 votes. What template? The Liberals threw everything they had at Daniel. It has come to light that Dutton personally intervened to divert crucial late election funding from outer suburban seats to reinforce races against sitting independents. It was not just Liberal funding. Their campaign was underwritten by millions of dollars from the fossil fuel industry, via coal lobby front groups such as Australians for Prosperity, because they see strong, climate-focused community independents such as Daniel as an existential threat to their industries.

Climate policy presents one of the most serious risks of division within the Coalition. The Coalition will need, in electoral terms, not to backslide to being seen as climate deniers, delayers and anti-science. They must continue to support emissions reduction targets and work on the path to best achieve those targets.

The Albanese government is to set, under its Paris Agreement responsibilities, an interim target for 2035, en route to its commitment to net zero emissions by 2050. Unfortunately, several members of the National Party have sought to drop this commitment and have spoken widely, outside agreed Coalition policy, in the hopes of building momentum for such a change. Indeed, it looked for a time as though dropping net zero might be one of the policy principles.

I have been staggered by the Nationals’ duplicity on climate throughout the climate wars, especially as I had unanimous agreement in the joint party room in 1993 for the very significant climate policy that we took to that election. I have never been able to understand their denial on climate – beyond their concern for their fossil fuel donors – given that the farming community could and certainly should make a substantial contribution to emissions reduction. They could be leaders instead of Luddites. Backed by proven, fundable technologies they could propose soil carbon or various biogas solutions with important regional components in terms of jobs and investment. For a party that really doesn’t have an effective regional strategy, it should be a “no brainer”.

In terms of soil carbon, the opportunity is for farmers to embrace fairly minor adjustments to their farming practices – such as shallow tilling, a switch from chemical to organic fertilisers – to allow a significant increase in the carbon content of their soils. Former governor-general Michael Jeffery did much to promote this through his Soils for Life initiative, gathering evidence of the policy’s viability. Indeed, he was appointed as National Advocate for Soil Health, with some important funding, by a previous Coalition government.

Biogas should also be a feature of Coalition climate policy, supported by the Nationals. The essence of this approach, with globally proven and fundable technology, is a complete circular-economy solution. Organic farm waste can be collected from right across regional Australia and converted into a biogas that is a zero emissions drop-in alternative to liquefied natural gas, requiring no changes to household appliances or to industrial processes in use. It would be renewable, price competitive and could solve gas supply issues – avoiding the need for gas imports. The residue from the conversion process, digestate, can be recycled to farmers to fertilise their soil.

These policy alternatives would allow the Coalition to re-establish unquestioned climate credentials and to make a constructive contribution to the inevitable clean energy transition.

The magnitude of the challenges Sussan Ley will face as leader over the coming years can’t be overstated. It is clearly a plus to be the first woman to lead the Liberals, although I fear that to head off the old-guard misogynists she will need to do even better than any male alternative. She will need to establish processes that require each shadow minister to work with a selected group of backbenchers to develop detailed policy proposals in their portfolios, for ultimate review by the shadow cabinet and the joint party room, with a communications strategy for each.

However, over and above all this, Ley will need to clean up the party organisation. Party membership has been declining as members have felt disenfranchised, even excluded. Membership in New South Wales, for instance, has slumped. The effectiveness of the organisation as a community base and a campaigning force has been ruined by the increasing factionalisation of the members. Preselection processes have been corrupted, with reports of attempted branch stacking, bullying and prospective candidates paying for memberships to tie up supportive branches. The quality of candidates has deteriorated, leaving many talented prospects preferring to run as independents. This reset of the party organisation is an area in which I clearly failed as leader; I realised in time that key party officials were working against me.

It is noteworthy that Tony Abbott, a formidable campaigner in his time, has been calling for a federal takeover of the NSW division. I might otherwise take this as supporting my call for party reform, except that Abbott has been instrumental in the factionalisation of the party.

Perhaps a final challenge for Ley will be to end the Sky News partnership, to discourage colleagues from appearing in their fawning interviews and on their stacked panels. This has lacked professionalism and has certainly not resonated with Australians. Engagement with all the networks and various platforms should be an imperative, and for a meaningful engagement, they must have something useful to say.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on June 6, 2025 as "The path to an electable Coalition".

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