The Final Death Throes of the Liberal Party

We are witnessing, in real time, the final death throes of what was once a great political force: the Liberal Party of Australia.

This week began with a historic Newspoll showing, for the first time ever, that One Nation had overtaken the Coalition. However, for the Liberals, the news was even worse than it appeared.

With the combined Coalition vote collapsing to a record-low 21%, the likely breakdown is a miserable 16% Liberal and 5% Nationals. 

Meanwhile, “Others” had risen to 13%; these include a bloc of disaffected conservatives spanning the Libertarians, Rennick’s Australia First, the United Australia Party, Family First, and the Heart Party. Combined, they would total around 6% and most of these voters would preference One Nation ahead of the Liberals.

You’d think that faced with such a moment of existential peril, the Liberals would end their futile appeasement of the Left and focus on holding their coalition together by ensuring the Nationals stayed inside the tent. Instead, they did the exact opposite.

The political incompetence defies belief. If three cabinet colleagues (from the Nationals) were preparing to cross the floor, any tactically competent leader would have instructed the Liberal Party to abstain, pointing out that rushing complex legislation through both Houses on the day of its introduction was reckless and a contempt of parliamentary process. That would have bought time to negotiate, regroup, and preserve unity.

Instead, Deputy Leader Susan Ley walked straight into Albanese’s trap, and not only managed to shift more votes from the Liberals to One Nation, but at the same time blew up what was left of the Coalition with the Nationals all resigning from her Shadow Cabinet.

The conservative vote is now fragmenting beyond repair for the Liberals: at just 16% for the Liberals versus roughly 32% combined for One Nation, the Nationals, and “Others,” it is over the Liberal Party

 And that’s the numbers from the Newspoll taken last week, which will only further implode given the events of the past few days.

This is not just a stumble. This is fatal. And the autopsy will reveal the unmissable causes of death: appeasement and cowardice.

An Autopsy of the Liberal Party

(Cause of Death: Cowardice)

The verdict is beyond question. The Liberal Party is not wounded. It is dead.

This is not bad luck. It is the logical, inevitable consequence of cowardice, betrayal, and the steady ideological surrender of a party that long ago sold out its values.

Below are the twenty-two principal causes of death, from the 2013 landslide under Tony Abbott, a moment of triumph where the Coalition won 45.5% of the primary vote to the lowly 21% in the latest Newspoll.

1. The treacherous sabotage of Tony Abbott by his own cabinet colleagues immediately after the 2013 landslide.

2. Abbott’s fatal mistake: appeasing internal enemies by signing Australia up to the Paris Agreement in 2015 without any party-room debate, surrendering sovereignty to global climate hysteria for peace that never came.

3. The surrender to the ABC, allowing a taxpayer-funded propaganda arm of the Left to attack Liberal values unchallenged.

4. A corrupt preselection system that rewards factional hacks and exiles genuine conservatives, leaving the party hollowed out.

5. Refusal to investigate the Bureau of Meteorology, despite clear manipulation of climate data to bolster ideological agendas.

6. Cowardice on education reform, letting children be indoctrinated by Gillard’s “cross-curriculum priorities” where they are taught to despise their country, culture, and history.

7. Failure to scrap Rudd’s “three flags policy,” embedding divisive identity politics and diminishing national unity.

8. The Turnbull coup, a political assassination driven by ego and vengeance that turned the party into a mirror of Labor’s Rudd–Gillard chaos.

9. Failure to dismantle the renewable energy racket, funneling billions to corporate rent-seekers through hidden green taxes bills.

10. Scott Morrison’s betrayal of his 2019 election promises by committing to Net Zero without consultation, appeasing people who would never vote Liberal.

11. Climate cowardice, choosing submission over truth and allowing alarmism to deindustrialise the nation and empower Communist China.

12. COVID cowardice, abandoning bodily autonomy, limited government, and individual liberty at the first whiff of COVID hysteria.

13. Authoritarian overreach in NSW, where Berejiklian and Hazzard matched Dan Andrews’ excesses, destroying any moral distinction between the parties.

14. Endorsing coercion and mandates, punishing workers who refused experimental medical treatments.

15. Weaponising AHPRA to silence doctors and failing to oppose Queensland’s draconian laws imprisoning doctors for prescribing safe, effective, and proven COVID treatments.

16. Morrison’s gag order instructing ministers not to criticise Dan Andrews, the ultimate act of cowardice in the face of tyranny.

17. Empowering the unelected anti-free speech zealot, eSafety Karen.

18. Silence on mass-migration, which is destroying social cohesion, crushing living standards, and pricing home ownership out of reach.

19. Failure to defend Senator Jacinta Price, a rare voice of truth, when she correctly called out Labor for using mass migration as a vote-harvesting exercise, and instead joining the pile-on for cheap photo-ops and cultural pandering.

20. Paralysis over the Mis- and Disinformation Bill, hiding under desks for weeks to sniff the breeze instead of standing up for freedom immediately.

21. Timid opposition to the Hate Speech Bill, which should have been condemned outright as an authoritarian attack on democracy.

22. The abandonment of free speech altogether, proof that the party no longer believes in its founding principles.

The Verdict

The conclusion is unavoidable: the Liberal Party did not lose its way. It chose to abandon it. More than half of former Liberal supporters now support other parties. They didn't leave, the party left them.  

The Liberals bent the knee to the ABC, big bureaucracy, activist elites, and the leftist inner-city non-productive class; voters who would never support the party under any circumstances. It betrayed its base, surrendered its culture, and torched its credibility.

Now it stands as an empty vessel; a hollow carcass wearing Menzies’ name without Menzies’ conviction, principles or values.

However, would Sir Robert Menzies be rolling in his grave? Probably not.

He believed in principle, not machinery. In courage, not cowardice. In conviction, not compromise.

If he could see today’s party, he might simply say:

“Let it burn to the waterline.
Let it collapse entirely.
And may something honest, principled, and fearless arise from its ashes — something worthy of the values the Liberal Party once embodied.”

Where Renewal Begins

So let's hope a new force can arise from ashes of the Liberal Party, with the simple creed that built Australia’s greatest political movement:

We believe in the inalienable rights and freedoms of all peoples;
In lean government that governs least and empowers most;
In incentive over punishment, enterprise over dependency;
In the fundamental freedoms of speech, worship, thought, and association;
In family as the cornerstone of society, and law as its shield;
And in the private citizen as the true creator of wealth, opportunity, and national strength.

Until those words mean something again, the Liberal Party will remain what it has become: a dead institution mouthing the slogans of a faith it no longer practices.

“I was surprised, one day, when he (Sir Robert Menzies) said to me, and I think it must have been after the 1972 election, that he had not voted for the Liberal Party in the past two elections. I was amazed.”
– B. A. Santamaria