Liberals In Name Only – How Factions have Dismantled Australia’s Alternative to Labor
By Steven Tripp
originally published in the spectator australia - please support the spectator australia!
Do you remember the John Howard era? The era of sound economic management and stable leadership.
Love him or hate him, John Howard was a man of conviction. In 1998, he took the GST to an election, despite it being deeply unpopular. But he believed it would benefit the Nation. More importantly, he relentlessly sold it to voters.
The Howard Government was determined to leave Australia in better shape than they found it. By the time Howard and Peter Costello were done in 2007, they had turned Labor’s net debt of $96 billion into a $29 billion net financial asset surplus.
Fast forward to 2025.
Australia is experiencing its biggest economic downturn in decades. The Reserve Bank has spiked interest rates to control inflation, business insolvencies increased by 39% in 2023-24 from the previous year and the prospect of owning a home for young Australians is fantasy at best.
Then there is debt. The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported Australia’s general Government net debt reached $846.6 billion in 2023-24.
Under these conditions, the party of sound economic management should have been returned to Government at the election. Instead, the Liberals were decimated and Peter Dutton lost his seat.
The Liberal Party is a shadow of its former self.
Can you imagine John Howard campaigning in a ‘cost-of-living’ election with a lead policy to reduce the fuel excise by 25c/litre for 12 months?
Speaking on The Outsiders the day after the election, Liberal Senator Alex Antic summed it up best by saying: “Many of the policies were…reminiscent of a mobile phone contract. You know, for the first 12 months you’ll get something free…”
“Unfortunately, we sent the troops into battle without ammunition.”
Australians expect more from the Liberal Party. Is it little surprise that their primary vote has decreased from 53% in 1975 to 31.7% in 2025?
Beyond economic policy, the Liberal’s campaign was a disaster.
A turning point was the disendorsement of Ben Brittion, the candidate for Whitlam, for comments he made on the Ark Podcast. Britton argued that women should not serve on the front line of the Defence Force and said, “Your society only exists because of women. Why would you want to sacrifice them in war?”
Arguing against sending our ‘beautiful women’ to be slaughtered on the front lines of war was clearly too broad for the party that claims to be a ‘broad Church’ of ideas.
Ben Britton Campaigning in Whitlam
The true story was that internal Liberal polling suggested that Britton was three points up in Whitlam and could win the seat.
Agitated, the left ‘moderate’ faction swooped into action, threatening Britton with even more damning material, with claims of domestic violence and sexual images – all of which were denied and no evidence ever surfaced.
Speaking on 2GB, Britton said, “What’s occurring within the NSW division r
ight now is a systematic plot from the left faction working hand in glove with members of the right faction, who are traitors, to stab Peter Dutton in the back, ensure he doesn’t get elected as prime minister, so they can roll him as leader”.
For true Liberals, their biggest threat is not opposing parties, but the factional swamp creatures within their own.
Speaking in the Senate in March 2022, former Liberal Concetta Fierravanti-Wells addressed her party by saying, “the fish stinks from the head”.
She added, “There is a putrid stench of corruption emanating from the New South Wales division of the Liberal Party”.
Following the 2023 New South Wales State election, former Premier Nick Greiner conducted a ‘Review of the Liberal Party’s 2023 NSW Election Result’.
The review highlighted the role of the NSW State Executive, by stating, ‘inter-factional toxic dysfunction remained rife and it failed overall in its duty to act as a responsible governing board’.
In April 2023, the Liberals lost the Aston by-election. They had held it since 1990. Monash University's senior lecturer in politics Zareh Ghazarian said the defeat was a “monumental shift”.
He added, “The party has been so focused on its internal operation that it has cut oxygen away from any further discussions about what the party wants to do if it were to win government or what the party's broader policies are.”
A year later, the NSW State Executive and its President, Don Harwin were sacked by the Federal branch of the Party. It was deemed necessary, after the Division failed to lodge the applications of Council candidates in the lead up to the 2024 Local Government election.
Rumours of factional infighting and manoeuvring were to blame.
The civil war of the factions has deeper roots, with the battle for democratic reform in the Party showcasing the rift within the Liberals.
Addressing a ‘Democratic Reform’ meeting branded as a ‘call to arms’ in 2016, Tony Abbott said, “For too long, the Party hierarchy has expected the rank and file to turn up, to pay up and to shut up”.
Democratic reform was an attempt by conservatives within the Party to grant the rank-and-file Members a greater say in pre-selecting candidates.
The sentiment within the movement was best summed up by Senator Bill Heffernan, who said, “You can’t get a cleanskin up in this party anymore. Unless you’ve bared your arse to the factional warriors you have no chance”.
Despite succeeding, the reforms were not worth the paper they were written on, which was evident in the lead up to the 2022 Federal election.
Ignoring the reforms, Scott Morrison, Dominic Perrottet and former NSW Liberal President Christine McDiven hand-picked 12 candidates. They were known as the ‘captain’s picks’.
Walter Villatora, a leader of democratic reform, warned that the sidelining of Party Members would start, “a civil war in the party”, and could, “potentially derail the Morrison government’s already fragile electoral prospects”. He was right.
Meanwhile, NSW State Executive member, Matthew Camenzuli, launched legal action against Morrison and the captain’s picks, which culminated in the High Court.
Ultimately the Courts ruled they did not have authority to rule on internal party politics.
Camenzuli was expelled from the Party and forced to pay legal costs.
Victims of this factional infighting are now scattered across the political scene. Gerard Rennick launched People First. Craig Kelly and John Ruddick lead the NSW Libertarian Party. Russell Broadbent ran as an Independent, as did Britton and Camenzuli. Bernie Finn led the Family First Senate ticket in Victoria.
Instead of focusing on providing Australians with a credible alternative to Labor, the Liberals have their guns aimed at themselves.
All that is left are the Liberals in name only.
By Steven Tripp