The battle for the narrative of the Liberals’ catastrophic defeat was underway within hours of the results becoming clear. And, like the Big Lie peddled by Donald Trump and millions of Republicans in the US (that the 2020 election was stolen from them), this lie is all about controlling the party into the future.
Far-right South Australian Liberal Alex Antic warned, “the Liberal Party’s experiment with the poison of leftism and progressivism must be over”.
“We adopted a Liberal moderate platform on energy, on climate, on the culture issues, and that platform has failed,” another far-right senator, the LNP’s Matt Canavan, reckoned.
According to former Abbott chief of staff Peta Credlin, “instead of sticking with the quiet Australians who’d supported him to his miracle win last time, Morrison’s shift to the left didn’t placate the teals, but it sure alienated one-time Coalition supporters who moved in droves to splinter parties on the right”.
Andrew Bolt insisted: “I see some of the more clueless Liberal survivors crawl from the wreckage and whimper that they’ve got to swing even more to the left. Have these clowns learnt nothing? If the Liberals don’t grow a spine and get off their knees, they are finished.”
That all of these are linked to the shit-flingers of Fox News Oz is telling.
Even a moment’s glance at the election results shows that Antic, Canavan, Credlin and Bolt are either incapable of simple maths or deliberately misrepresenting the outcome.
Australia shifted towards climate action, integrity and respect for women, dramatically. The Liberals lost seats to the teals, to Labor, to the Greens. Labor lost seats to the Greens, too. On the results so far, no one, anywhere, lost a seat to a more right-wing candidate. But there are plenty of ex-Liberals who lost seats to a more progressive one.
There was no shift to the right. Credlin’s claim that “one-time Coalition supporters … moved in droves to splinter parties on the right” is simply wrong. One Nation lost votes compared to 2019, despite fielding candidates in far more seats, and Hanson may lose her Senate spot. The main beneficiary of the fall in the LNP vote in Queensland was the Greens, who will take Ryan.
This Australian version of the Big Lie is the first stage of a war for the future of the federal Liberal Party, with the far-right unable to resist the opportunity to exploit the removal of so many more moderate MPs to drive the federal party away from climate action and towards culture wars, division and attacks on women and minorities.
At the centre of it will be the foreign political party News Corp. Despite its irrelevance to mainstream Australia being demonstrated by the election result, the Murdochs will continue to wield significant influence within a purged Coalition, and the company will seize on its status as an opposition party. From yesterday, the Murdoch campaign of regime change in Australia began — it’s just that the campaign extends to the Coalition as well as a Labor government.
This shouldn’t be treated as some sort of sideshow. When Tony Abbott defeated Malcolm Turnbull in 2009 by one vote, with the backing of News Corp, he set the stage for 13 years of climate wars and polarised, toxic politics. He was aided by Kevin Rudd’s failure to seize the moment and go to an election that would have smashed the Coalition. One mistake is all it takes and the course of political history can be very different.
The Big Lie, Australian style, is just the start.
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I completely agree with Bernard Keane. Matt Canavan has never made much sense, but his comments yesterday hit a new level of confused thinking. But I wonder if the rest of us need to be too concerned if the Liberal party decides to shift to a position where it is completely unelectable? Continuing to try to appeal to a disappearing demographic simply makes no sense. The problem for the far-right Murdoch commentators is that they continue to believe their own propaganda. One has a mental picture of the Fuhrer, deranged in his bunker, poring over maps of Europe and ordering the deployment of troops which had long since ceased to exist
Bernard Keane’s pieces are must reads and here he is spot on. Especially his labeling of News Corp as a foreign owned political organisation. ABC radio and television for one has to take this fact onboard instead of fawning over this discredited outfit. Day after day, The Australian drives its news bulletins and ABC radio presenters use the junk they’ve read earlier that day in one of Murdoch’s rags as topics for discussion. What has happened to their own news gathering capacity? Just yesterday, Radio National had Greg Sheridan on – yes, the renowned Murdoch apologist – discussing the election aftermath. And there’ll be another installment tonight from Media Watch where they’ll froth and fume about News’s wrong-doings. If one thing is clear from this election it is that Murdoch’s and Stoke’s powers of persuasion are imaginary and only of value to those who wish it were so. I and many like me, go out of our way to ignore this evil organisation and I hope real media organisations will do likewise.
If there’s a new will for it with the Teals, the Greens and the more progressive Laborites, an inquiry into media ownership and operation a la Rudd and Turnbull could be pushed onto the agenda. Expect a lot of excuses from conservative Labor and a lot of ranting from News Corp.
Thanks for referring to the Teals with a capital. They have earned their place as a distinctive force in auspol. At least the MSM is now dropping the “so-called” epithet.
ABC radio news Sunday 5:30 PM still referring to the Teal Independents as “so-called” Independents.
Time to cull the idiots from the ABC.
I was astonished to see the strapline on News 24 saying “Greens and Jackie Lambie network to determine Labor’s agenda through senate balance of power.” Even making allowances for the needs of brevity in a headline, this is a wildly inaccurate use of the words determine and agenda, but fits a framing that the Greens and others will be controlling the incoming Government.
One can only hope that the ABC can be revived as an independent and relaible source of news and information.
The other media organisations can’t ignore News Corp, particularly the ABC. Sky is free to air throughout regional Australia. News Corp owns so very many of the regional newspapers. They can’t and shouldn’t ignore them, but why they leave them unchallenged, uncorrected and let them set the agenda? That I don’t know.
Rupert had to surrender his Australian citizenship to own media properties in the USA. That is the law there – foreigners have to commit themselves to the US before they can run a megaphone at the people of the US. These sorts of laws are long overdue in Australia. Murdoch père et fils should be required to divest themselves of their Austalian media properties if they hold foreign citizenship and live in the USA. They don’t care if Australia has a functional society or democracy. Hell, as a casual glance at their works in the US makes clear, they don’t even care if their new home, the USA, has those things.
The other thing is the ridiculous concentration of media holdings. Paul Keating broke up that sort of thing in his day and what does Albo have to lose now given what rabid partisans the Newscorpse hacks have become. Work with the crossbench and wipe out their monopolies and put an end to their undue influence. Could they squawk any louder than they already do?
Credlin, Bolt, Canavan, and all the others are exactly as Bernard says, unable to reason logically or are deliberately distorting the facts. . Australia wants more on climate change and other centrist (not left) policies. Lead the Liberals further right if you like, but that will leave the Liberal party as a small coterie of deluded Republican party style divisive haters of common sense.
Yes, PLEASE lead the Liberals further Right, into lunatic territory.
Because we are NOT America, and never will be.
And after the last nine years, we all need a good laugh
What a great idea. It’ll make them completely unelectable, just like it did when Abbott was the Liberal’s leader!
Be very careful what you wish for…
Had Krudd called an election – before being rolled by “colleagues” – Abbott would have been barely a footnote.
It was then Foreign Minister Krudd’s vindictive, leaking, white anting against his successors that proved to be so self destructive and condemned us to the last decade of misrule.
Very true. Which reinforces my point. The Liberals can certainly win power when led by a dangerous lunatic so long as Labor is capable of blundering badly enough. And who in their right mind would say Labor cannot stuff it up again?
Credlin has boasted about lying for political gain https://www.sbs.com.au/news/carbon-tax-just-brutal-politics-credlin
I disaggreee: There is plenty of information which says the level of input from News Corp would have influenced the vote. The liberals should be thankful for all the help fromRupee, as it woudl have beeen an ven worse bloodbath if he wasnt giving them so much help. He has to be belled!
Not to forget input into or actually shaping the news agenda on a daily basis, backgrounded by nativist libertarian themes that have been running for decades while promoting the right and disappearing the centre and left.
You can’t unscramble an omelette and the Liberals certainly can’t unscramble what took place on Saturday night.
The very IDEA that you can win back Kooyong, Goldstein, North Sydney and Mackellar from independents – let alone Brisbane and Ryan from The GREENS with a move to the right is just so stupid that it defies any respect at all.
That won’t stop the Liberals and News Corp from trying though, so here’s what’s going to happen.
The Liberals and News Corp will now – following the example of their GOP political brethren in the US – double down and go even harder right and attempt to win those outer suburban and regional seats held by Labor (Moreton, Hunter, Dobell, Robertson etc).
They will write off the independents seats and the Greens seats and instead go all out on cultural issues for the outer suburbs and regions, this is how their likely new leader has built his political career in Dickson, turn it into an us against them style culture war.
We are now at a similar split to the Americans and our country will be politically divided on educational/income lines, the high educated and higher income groups will skew Labor/Greens and the Coalition + PHON/UAP will feast upon the disillusioned and disaffected, just as we are seeing in the US.
The number one issue for Labor is to not take the bait on the culture war nonsense, stay focused on delivering real and substantial accomplishments, leave the juvenile stuff for Paul Murray et al on Sky News after dark.
I think this election has shown that, thankfully, Australians are generally more intelligent and compassionate than Americans. What works for Murdoch and Trump in the US does not necessarily work here. Let’s hope it will continue to be this way.
The culture of political apathy in Australia combined with the habit of calling out bullsh1t makes us less susceptible to the cult of Murdoch. Although apathy was put aside this time & the progressives had a loud voice.
It seems likely that compulsory voting has also served Australia well. The assaults on the political system by the Murdoch media in the USA and UK persuade many voters to give up in disgust and not vote at all. This is generally helpful to the parties Murdoch supports. In Australia this cannot work the same way for as long as compulsory voting remains.
Which is why the hard right – eg exSen Nick Minchin et al – have long advocated its abolition in favour of FPtP.
True but compulsory voting and FPTP are separate issues and not mutually exclusive
True of course but they also want the abolition of compulsory voting, claiming it is undemocratic.
Their half way house, Optional Preferential, another of their wet dreams, is current in NSW & long term in Qld. state & council elections.