Comment

John Hewson
The unravelling of the Liberal Party

Clearly, not everyone saw delusion in Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s run for, and subsequent attacks on, the Liberal leadership.

Her actions have been embraced by the Murdoch mob, in particular the excitable team at Sky News. She is backed as ever by right-wing advocacy group Advance, and think tanks such as the Institute of Public Affairs and the Centre for Independent Studies.

The rush of blood to the conservative media’s head was triggered by Price’s recent statements about Indian migrants and her refusal to properly apologise, and then her failure to publicly support Sussan Ley as the Coalition leader, which led to her justifiable ouster from the shadow ministry.

Many, both within and beyond Canberra’s political sphere, see the senator for what she has been since entering politics – a negative, divisive and disloyal force, and particularly so since she ditched the Nationals and joined the Liberal Party. Her political ambitions really took flight with the prominent role she played – employed to full effect by former opposition leader Peter Dutton – in opposing the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum. Dutton then endorsed her aspirations with a role in his election campaign. It quickly soured, given her lack of political substance and her ill-considered utterances about MAGA and other Trumpist lines.

It was hard to explain her appointment to the shadow ministry in the first place – especially taking into account her controversial time on the Alice Springs Town Council. Price is not a team player – it’s always her career first, then the party. Moreover, she has no particular policy expertise or experience, certainly none to justify the defence industries portfolio she was given. I suppose Ley felt she had to give Price something, given the brouhaha with which she arrived, and the leader probably felt the new recruit would work better with Angus Taylor, given their declared leadership alliance and friendship. It was surely a strategic miscalculation, as it’s possible Taylor knows even less about the defence portfolio – having never contributed significantly on the most relevant issues.

Ley has at least now been able to correct the poor initial decision to appoint Price to the front bench.

With her comment on “mass migration”, Price was obviously seeking to capitalise on the anti-immigration sentiment of the recent marches and protests taking place both here and overseas. She did however, once again, show very poor judgement and a lack of compassion towards Indian migrants, whose support the Liberals will need in both city and country seats at future elections.

It was insensitive and demeaning to assume that Indians vote as a coordinated, homogeneous block. Perhaps the strong skew polling firm RedBridge Group noted among the community towards Labor at the last election owed to Dutton’s racism and generally poor campaign? These communities deserve respect, not cheap political shots.

Price’s attack on Indian migrants rekindled memories of the party’s mishandling of Chinese–Australian voters that cost it dearly in the past couple of elections. The electorate can infer from these incidents that there is a deep-seated racism in the Coalition. This point was made forcibly by the Gillard government’s trade minister Craig Emerson recently, as he suggested that these conservative parties “offer cover for bigots”. I fear this is closer to the mark than we’d care to believe. It’s worth noting that Price was speaking outside her portfolio, to which she had given completely inadequate attention – with all that’s going on, she could have issued a press release on defence every day, cheered on by her friends in the media.

This has been a destabilising episode for Ley, stirring talk of a challenge by the end of this year. I believe it is most unfortunate that Ley hasn’t been afforded a clear opportunity to do the job. I accept she hasn’t been inspirational or strategic but, like countless before her, she deserves a genuine chance. That said, if she wants to survive politically, she will need to do better than the anti-government, anti-welfare and amorphous speech she delivered at the think tank CEDA this week.

The current Coalition needs to learn the importance of discipline and teamwork rather than engaging in this persistent navel gazing.

The party’s sluggishness in conducting its policy reviews, and in announcing any new strategic direction or clear positions on so many pressing national issues, has created the image of a rudderless group more absorbed by internal squabbles than good policy. There has been a complete shambles over issues such as immigration, climate change and net zero, the latter ignoring the substance of the recently released climate risk assessment. The contribution of Andrew Hastie this week, in suggesting he would leave the front bench if the party sticks with its climate target, could not have been more ill-considered or ill-timed.

This Coalition is sadly and obviously not in any condition to govern – a fact clearly reflected in its devastating polls. Anthony Albanese would win again if an election were held now, and probably even more definitively. The primary vote for the Coalition in the most recent Newspoll collapsed to 27 per cent – the worst result in the poll’s history since 1985. The Labor primary vote was steady at 36 per cent, giving the government a commanding 58-42 two-party preferred lead, which is Albanese’s biggest margin since taking office.

This latest Price saga was likely an important contributor to the slide in the polls. Ley was seen to be slow in responding, especially given the clear breach of cabinet responsibilities. Ley waited surprisingly long to call on Price to apologise to the Indian diaspora, which in the end she had to do herself. Price became a particularly shambolic element of an unfolding Liberal mess, despite her protection team, led by former prime minister Tony Abbott – who last week described Price in this paper as “one of the few Liberal MPs with a proven ability to provide national leadership” – and his former chief of staff, Peta Credlin. One Liberal MP told The Sydney Morning Herald that Credlin’s soft interviews on Sky News are Price’s “safe space”.

The constraints on Ley and therefore her performance need to be recognised. She beat Taylor by only a small margin of four votes – depending in part on the support of senators whose parliamentary time has now ended. She also allowed the unsuccessful candidate for Bradfield to vote. Unfortunately, Ley’s staff are seemingly quite inexperienced, and closely associated with Alex Hawke, who apparently runs her office. This is a clear disadvantage given his history of factionalism in the New South Wales party, and broader ambitions. Price alleged that Hawke berated her staff, generating a heated argument, rather than Ley calling directly.

Ley is also disadvantaged by Abbott running amok across factions in the NSW party. He was instrumental in Price’s transfer from the Nationals. He is also clearly behind her ambitions, which to Abbott would mean building a hard-right conservative force in our politics, channelling the likes of Britain’s Nigel Farage, talked up by the cheer squad of Andrew Bolt, Rowan Dean and Paul Murray.

Ley’s reshuffle again emphasises an important weakness of the current Liberal Party, namely the absence of genuine talent with significant professional standing. Those days seem long gone as the party is simply not attracting such people – a sharp contrast with the candidates drawn to the independents movement. As a result, the shadow cabinet is appointed mostly on political and geographic considerations, meaning that inexperienced members have to learn on the job, forced to perform without particular compassion and commitment. For example, Price’s complex role combining defence industry and personnel with cybersecurity and science has been split between Melissa Price of Western Australia and Claire Chandler of Tasmania. It was also bordering on ridiculous to add Senator James Paterson to the leadership team. As the party’s campaign spokesman in the election, he showed an inability to expand on or explain the statements by the leaders.

I am sure, nevertheless, that Ley will expect, and hopefully get, more loyalty and discipline from her new team than she was getting before.

Even if the current leader were to be spilt, I don’t believe, given Jacinta Price’s total sellout of Indigenous Australia, that she could or should win, or indeed ever be given any meaningful portfolio in the future. Changing the jockey won’t make a winner if the horse is crook.

Three leadership challenges remain, for whoever is in the role. First, achieving genuine unity within the party and the Coalition. Second, policy credibility. Third, deep organisational reform. All three require consistent, coordinated and focused hard work with all back- and frontbenchers making their essential contributions. Sadly, as things stand, these efforts are not yet being made.

I imagine the other aspiring leaders – Hastie, Taylor or Tim Wilson spring to mind – are happy to let Price go on destabilising from the back bench. They are just sitting back like spiders in a web, waiting for their moment to strike.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on September 20, 2025 as "Price checked".

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