Today’s the big day, folks. Today’s the day ultraconservative Senator / rampant homophobe / weird lizard-man Cory Bernardi finally makes good on a years-long threat and ditches the Liberal Party. He’s expected to use the first sitting day of Parliament to announce that he’s jetting.
His colleagues in the Libs are making a couple of last-minute pleas for Cory to stick around.
“I’d encourage Cory to have maybe one last think,” MP Craig Kelly told the ABC last night. “You can do a lot more inside the Liberal party, working for, arguing those things that you believe in, than actually outside the tent.”
It’s possibly a good call. Cory has said he was inspired by Donald Trump‘s ascendancy that a populist right-wing platform can resonate with voters, but it’s important to remember that Trumpism didn’t involve a third party pitch – the Don worked inside the existing Republican Party towards his ends.
It’s also important to remember that whereas Pauline Hanson has the racism and anti-multiculturalism as well as a programme of economic nationalism, Cory really only has the culture wars stuff. He’s still a hardcore free trade liberal when it comes to economics – so it’ll be mighty hard for him to pitch to the same disillusioned crowd who are feeling the pinch.
Basically, you can get wingnuts onboard with a crusade against The Gays and halal food, sure, but can you make a broad popular movement without real politics? The stuff that materially affects Australians every day?
Also, he’s got zero credibility as an outsider, unlike Hanson. He’s been working within party politics for years. Not that Pauline hasn’t, mind you, but she’s still got more credibility on that front than Bernardi.
Health Minister Greg Hunt issued a carefully worded encouragement for Cory to stick with the Libs on ABC 7.30. “I hope that each and every person who committed to the Liberal Party, and through that committed to the voters, honours that pledge.”
“The point that Cory needs to reflect on is he is in the Parliament by virtue of the endorsement of the South Australian Liberal Party,” the Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg told Q&A. “He’s always been treated courteously within the Liberal Party and our party resembles that broad church of views.”
George Christensen, the bloke everyone thought most likely to ditch the Coalition with Bernardi, says he wasn’t approached and wouldn’t do it, and that he was loyal to his rural electors and Barnaby Joyce.
George Christensen still not confirming Bernadi defection on @rnbreakfast but says LNP needs to double down on conservative issues.
— Alice Workman (@workmanalice) February 6, 2017
That said, George is still keen to see the Coalition become markedly more conservative, and obviously will leverage any kind of defection as a means of making that happen.
Guess we’ll have to stay tuned and see if Cory actually goes through with it, the absolute madman.
Source: ABC.
Photo: ABC.
