I have opined to a couple of people lately that I reckon the big long term problem with the Liberal Party (and why they have plummeted in polling) is that it has tried to straddle both sides of the barbed wire fence for so long with respect to climate change, and now immigration too.
Of course, all parties have to do this to a degree - do we really think Labor leadership isn't biting its tongue continually with respect to the Trump presidency?
But with the Liberals, it's played a game of "we believe in it, we just don't believe in doing much about it" on climate change for two to three decades now, and have been completely unable to present a unified front, with individual MPs always making clear their complete disbelief in it even being a real issue, under the mantra that "it's a big party, it can tolerate dissenting views".
Well, no. If it's an important enough issue, a party loses credibility by such toleration.
I maintain that Turnbull's leadership died on this division, and he should have initiated a split in the party by demanding that those who dispute it as a real, science based, problem that needs the clear endorsement of clean renewable energy just get out of the party, because the division is killing their credibility, especially in urban electorates. But he didn't.
And now that "too much immigration" sentiment has caught on with much of the populist Right here (partly via contagion from Trumpian and some European politics, and partly by dishonest assessment of numbers here in light of COVID disruption), the Liberals are caught on another major fence straddle - they want to appeal to both dumb, prejudiced populists who have (at least temporarily) been telling pollsters they will vote for Pauline Hansen purely because of this issue, AND to urban electorates full of migrants who don't particularly like being told there's no hope of family members joining them, and that lots of Australians don't like them.
What a disaster it is for the party that Tony Abbott has re-asserted influence within the party, and has started endorsing co-operation with One Nation, while other party members yearn for the days he was the assassin sent to eliminate Hanson.
Maybe the fundamental problem for the Liberals is that its party base has aged, and as a class, older people are stupider people when it comes to climate change. And any younger people who have some attraction to the party are probably under the influence of the culture warring of the populist American Republicans, and hence also not strong believers in climate change but want to spent their time on decrying "woke" issues and complaining about tax. So the smarter politicians in the party who do see climate change as a very large and demanding issue have this internal institutional pushback to fight against.
The party is therefore kind of doomed for now, and I don't see it being fixed unless they have the massive internal clean out they need.
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The USA and Europe faced an illegal immigration problem. We don't have that. There has been too much immigration here and the resentment is mostly about housing. When the Right tries to make it about culture that is nonsense. There is also a question of skills. If you want to meet a new immigrant catch a cab or order food delivery.
In the younger age groups there might be a revolt against the excesses of wokery. The transgender issue has blown up and it is brute obvious that in women's sport the demands are ridiculous. The Left broadly and the ALP specifically need to walk away from that.
Don't expect many on the Right to change their mind about AGW. Just ask them to explain why the glaciers in Indonesia have all but disappeared. Or why increasing temperatures are reducing salmon run numbers. They try to drag us into the weeds on their pet arguments but those are predicated on false assumptions and they know that. They also know it makes for useful strawman arguments which make them appear analytically sophisticated.
ON is a gift to the ALP. ON will fall on its sword. In an election campaign Malcolm Roberts will be forced to admit his lunatic ideas. However his health is poor, he might not even make it to the next election. Eventually the malcontents will return to the coalition.
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