The Liberal Party is now "fighting for its existence", according to one of its own former federal MPs.After the low of the 2025 federal election defeat, the party's position as the major force in Australian conservative politics in under threat from an ascendant One Nation.
The Liberal Party is now "fighting for its existence", according to one of its own former federal MPs.
After the low of the 2025 federal election defeat, the party's position as the major force in Australian conservative politics in under threat from an ascendant One Nation.
This weekend's meeting of the party's federal council in Melbourne will install former prime minister Tony Abbott as federal president. Behind the scenes, it will also see some internal soul-searching, whatever brave face the party seeks to put on publicly.
Former MP Keith Wolahan was one of the victims of last year's election rout, narrowly losing his Melbourne seat of Menzies. Wolahan is a rare creature in today's Liberal Party: a moderate, and an outspoken one at that.
He joined the podcast to talk about issues facing the Liberals, the party's future, and how it should deal with One Nation.
Wolahan said his party was now "fighting for its existence" and shouldn't have been surprised by a recent Redbridge poll, showing One Nation could win more than a third of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives, with the Coalition predicted to win just 12.
I think that poll is one of a long line of wake-up calls for the party. I think 2022 results, in terms of metropolitan seats, was a massive wake-up call for the Liberal Party. I thought the by-election defeats in Aston and Dunkley were wake-up calls. I thought that 2025 result obviously is a wake-up call. South Australia is a wake-up call, Farrer is a wake-up call. So the temperature has been turned up for so long now, I don't think any frog in the water should be surprised that it is now boiling.
Asked whether the Liberals should preference One Nation, Wolohan said they should be open to it if that helps form a future Coalition government.
This isn't an easy decision. It should be done on a seat-by-seat assessment because sometimes whatever party someone is in, there are extraordinarily bad candidates with a terrible track record and that should be assessed seat-by-seat.
Politics is also about maths. And you have to recognise that while the Liberal Party - its mission is to defeat all other parties, including One Nation - it has to do that in a way that focuses primarily on forming a Coalition majority. And so whatever the decision is, it has to be made with that in mind.
[...] The Liberal Party should be principled, but it should also be aware of the raw politics of maths, because you are not advancing this nation or your cause if you are in permanent opposition.
On Angus Taylor's migration plan to deny future permanent residents access to welfare benefits, Wolahan said Australian citizenship should "mean something':
I've looked at the social media scare campaigns that have been run on this. And what is missing from all of Labor's talking points is that the proposal by Angus Taylor is grandfathered. No one here who is a permanent resident is losing anything.
[...] I think the focus on the negative is missing the point. Citizenship means something. Australia's not just an investment destination, it's not a shopping centre, it's not a place you just put on your delivery address with Amazon. It is a nation that binds us all together. And the way that it binds us together is through citizenship. If this leads to more people becoming citizens, I think that's a good thing.
Asked about the shrinking proportion of moderate Coalition MPs, Wolahan said he was more struck by how few metropolitan seats the Coalition now holds - despite the majority of Australians living in cities.
I actually think the bigger divide that we're seeing is that there's less metropolitan members in the [Coalition] party room. When I went there, I noticed that the metropolitan members were a minority. So we started our own little breakfast to share metropolitan concerns. There's now only a handful, hardly any.
So the Liberal Party, when Tony Abbott was elected, had 44 metropolitan seats. It now has nine, and only two of those are inner metropolitan. So what's missing from the party room is more about the type of Australia that you represent. And given that that is the majority, at 57%, that is a huge gap of voices being heard in the party room.
On the negative gearing and capital gains tax (CGT) changes in the budget, Wolahan condemned Labor for breaking election promises not to make changes.
Yet he has also previously written about the need for some negative gearing reform, noting that 82% of investor loans went to existing housing, rather than helping build new homes.
I think negative gearing is very important, but if you could tilt it and shift it, in a way to new stock, you should do that. That said, you should either always put that to the people at an election, or seek a mandate from the opposition, do it together. Both of those weren't sought.
[...] So I don't have many problems with the negative gearing proposal. But I do have a problem with the way that it has been done; it hasn't been put to Australians.
I think there is no mandate for the CGT changes. And the fact that it is being sold as a way to solve the housing crisis, but expands to all asset classes, including shares and businesses [...] I think that is one of the most egregious breaches in politics in recent times. And it is no surprise that there has been [...] outrage from Australians.
TheConversation.com
Author: Michelle Grattan - Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
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