Bridget McKenzie goes to war with the Liberal Party, which elected her
Australia now knows what Sussan Ley was doing on Wednesday at 7.30pm.
She was clearly going out of her mind watching Bridget McKenzie, the female equivalent of a Mack truck, tell viewers of an ABC television program the Coalition’s termination was all about policy.
In what may have been the first live air-fact checking by a Liberal leader in history - even Malcolm Turnbull controlled his compulsive communication in office - one of Ms Ley’s advisers texted host Sarah Ferguson during the interview. Ignore the policy diversion, they said, the divorce was over the Nationals’ demand for freedom to critique Coalition policy.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.“Her language was deliberate to make it sound like it was just about the policies,” the adviser said. “That is just not correct.”
An opposition whose members disagree with their own policies might have a credibility problem. Which suggests, based on Ms Ley’s account of the break up, the Nationals made an offer they knew the Liberal Party could not accept.
The who-is-more-to-blame debate became extra confused with the leak of a letter from Senator McKenzie to the Liberal leader in the Senate, Michaelia Cash.
In a wonderfully passive-aggressive tone, Senator McKenzie complained Jacinta Napijinpa Price’s defection to the Liberals would cost the Nationals staff and other privileges provided only to parties with at least five senators. The Nationals are left with four. Pain dripping off the page, Senator McKenzie issued the gravest threat available.
“The Nationals Senate Party room will need to consider our position with respect to sitting with the Liberal Party as Coalition in the Senate chamber,’’ she wrote, according to news.com.au, on May 12, eight days before Ms Ley was informed she would be the first Liberal leader not to lead a coalition since the heady days of Liberal-Nationals conflict in the late 1980s.
People problems
The “bombshell” letter was clearly intended as a weapon of destruction.
“They knew!” Nationals yelled. “They were warned!”
One of the reasons post-election suggestions the end of the coalition could be nigh did not receive the attention they deserved was because they’re common. Nationals politicians know complaining about city-based Liberals plays well in the country. The best time to whinge is after an election, when there are no electorate consequences, and jobs are being allocated.
What pushed the Nationals this time from posturing to an assertiveness few realised they possessed is a mystery unravelling as we watch.
Liberals point to people problems. As a country Liberal who wants to move the party left, Ms Ley is both an electoral threat and a personal affront to the Nationals. That threat became more pointed Thursday morning with a report the Liberal Party intends to exclude Nationals candidates from its Senate ticket in NSW and Victoria. Without those spots, they are unlikely to be elected.
There is no greater punishment, short of jail or bankruptcy, than removing a politician from Parliament. Senator McKenzie is one of the two Nationals who would be affected at the next election, a danger that will presumably settle deep inside her amygdala as her lower-house colleagues, safe among their farm-owning constituents, send her out to wage war on the Liberal Party
And help explain why, on Thursday morning, both sides began talking about getting back together.
