I had something of a hope that Malcolm Turnbull would use his exit from politics to try to blow up the Liberals by stating the obvious: there is no working with those in the party who deny climate change. The party needs to split, as there is within it too large a rump of Right wing, American style "conservatives" who are more obsessed with trying to win back an already lost culture war, and it poisons their judgement against good and necessary policy on climate, economics, and even humanitarian issues. (The first two because evidence is ignored in favour of conspiracy and ideology; the latter because fighting a culture war means being obsessed with strength and never admitting you have gone too far - hence punishing wannabe refugees can continue forever as far as they are concerned.)
But Malcolm on his Q&A session last night gave no hint of understanding his party that way. Sure, he makes a good point that the electoral evidence from 3 former safe Liberal seats (now with independents) is that people are wanting Liberals to be centrist, small "l" liberals; but he just does not still seem to appreciate that the conservative wing who dumped him will continue to make it impossible to market the party as the one that he wants it to be.
"Broad church" fails when it tries to accommodate those who won't even acknowledge that a key and urgent issue such as climate change, with its broad impact on energy and economics policy, really exists.
Even Andrew Bolt seems to understand this better than Malcolm, since he has muttered about a split recently.
So, bring on an election, and let the Liberals have their crisis in Opposition where they can do less harm.
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