Morgan Atlas

Australia’s public institutions, including major political parties, are facing a crisis of identity, trust, and relevance. The Liberal Party’s recent challenges reflect a broader pattern of strategic drift, reactive governance, and diminished legacy stewardship. This moment demands more than reform; it calls for a recalibration of purpose.

The 2025 federal election was not merely a defeat for the Liberal Party; it was a reckoning. With just 43 seats retained, the once-dominant Coalition fractured under the weight of ideological drift, cultural misalignment, and strategic inertia. The Nationals walked away. Peter Dutton lost his seat. And the Liberal Party now finds itself in opposition, alone, adrift, and uncertain of its future.

The purpose of this article is not to focus on other political parties, that time will come. The shambolic state of the Liberal Party of Australia, and its state divisions, is a pivotal point in understanding the mire that Australia currently sees itself in now, rudderless, leaderless and clueless.

For decades, the Liberal–National Coalition offered a stable counterweight to Labor governments. But in recent years, the Liberal Party has struggled to reconcile its founding principles with the demands of a modern electorate. The tension between urban moderates and rural conservatives became untenable. Niche topics like climate, culture wars, and a refusal to engage voters hollowed out its base in capital cities. The party’s identity, once rooted in individual freedom, enterprise, and pragmatic governance, now feels diluted and directionless.

The post-election split with the Nationals was emblematic of deeper dysfunction. Disagreements over nuclear energy, regional investment, and telecommunications policy exposed a fundamental divergence in priorities. The Nationals, seeking to protect regional interests, demanded bold reforms. The Liberals, focused on urban recovery, refused to concede. The result: a formal rupture and the end of a decades-long alliance.

Noteworthy is that the National Party did well in the federal election. It maintained the status quo of its core constituency, or relatively so.

Labor’s historic victory, 94 seats and a 55.22% two-party preferred vote, was more of a reflection of the poor state of the Australian electoral system, essentially delivering no mandate, whatever a mandate is in an Australian context. Voters were left with no option but to maintain the status quo, elect a deeply unpopular, incompetent and bereft government.

When presented with execution by hanging or bullet, the decision becomes moot. Same in the current Australian landscape.

The Liberal Party’s primary vote of 31.82% was its lowest in modern history. Labors was 34.6%, the lowest ever primary vote to win majority government. You may recall Labor achieved 32.6% winning government in 2022 with support from Greens and Independents. Here is where the rot sets in, but then again, it has for a decade or more.

The 2025 election marked the first time a major party (Labor) formed government with a lower primary vote than the combined total of independents and minor parties. This reflects a long-term trend toward electoral fragmentation, and the growing importance of preference flows under Australia’s preferential voting system. The two-party preferred vote, 55.22% to Labor and 44.78% to the Liberal/National Coalition.

Together, the Liberals and Liberal National Party (LNP), a state division of the Liberal Party of Australia and The National Party of Australia (The Nationals) accounted for 34 of the Coalition’s 43 seats. The remaining 9 seats were held by The Nationals, who lost a seat, a seat previously held by The Nationals by the previous member who ran as an independent. The Liberal Party of Australia won 18 seats nationwide, down from 27 in the 2022 election, and the LNP won 16 seats, down from 21 in that same election.

With an increasingly ideologically driven Labor Party, inflaming socialist/Marxist culture wars, a dire economic predicament, a global outcast, backing terror organisations over long standing allies, inexplicably incompetent in foreign affairs and the geo-political strategic dilemma facing Australia on its doorstep – China, there has never been a more important time for an opposition counterweight.

The party’s original mission, fusing conservative and liberal traditions, has fractured. The moderate faction has increasingly dominated, sidelining conservatives and alienating centrist voters. No where is this more visible than in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia.

With commentators and an enlivened media supporting progressive causes, the platitudes of advice regarding the Liberal Party’s issue with women, climate rhetoric, culture wars, renewables and debt, fail to realise that indeed Peter Dutton and the Liberal Party, if polls can be believed, were well on track for victory as of March 2025. In fact, Dutton performed higher with female voters than Albanese. Indeed, Albanese won the election, and he is not a woman.

Dutton, seen as potentially a stronger leader in the polls, stumbled and lost all momentum when he backtracked on nuclear, a topic that was obvious as the nose on one’s face to the public during a systemic failure, by both sides, in energy policy.

To add salt to the wounds, the issue of the public sector raised its head again, as did the issue of working from home (WFH). Why would such a trivial issue become so important, well, it was allowed to become so, and internal bickering was to blame. Amid yet another crisis, the cost of living one, WFH was a viable option for many people, particularly when governments from both persuasions are throwing money at women and families to get back into the workforce. It was a no-brainer to leave it alone.

Politicians and those in the media will tell you that ‘this election is the most important’. Every election is important, it is shrill to think otherwise, hence why many question the foundations of democracy in Australia. Is it a three-year democracy, where you get to cast a vote then disappear and let a person you have no idea about claim to represent you in parliament or is it a republic where you leave all decision making in the hands of a few.

For the Liberals, there was no prosecution of any case, no vision of the future, no solutions to daily problems encountered by the citizenry – just guff. Cost of living, nuclear and the energy debate, the economy, cost of living, housing, defence, foreign affairs, all strengths of previous Coalition governments, even in opposition, were just non-existent in the 2025 campaign. The general sense of the election was that no one knew what it was about, so they tuned out as no one sold them a vision.

The most recent opinion poll in 2025 – Newspoll – shows Prime Minister Albanese with 49% perceived popularity and Leader of the Opposition, Sussan Lay, with 35%. By the shear nature of a poll of two people, this is a poor showing by both. It is even worse for the Liberal Party as they are not in government, and don’t look to be for some time. An increasingly incompetent and unpopular Labor Party can continue unencumbered as there is nothing to stop them from implementing what they wish, further devastating Australian values, customs and sovereignty in the years ahead.

The Liberal Party since the election of Sussan Ley as Opposition Leader has continued to underperform. It is unlikely that Sussan Ley will survive. There appears no ready replacement for her, with the most likely, Andrew Hastie, withdrawing from the recent ballot due to raising a young family. This does not bode well for the Liberal Party at all. Whilst former successful leaders and Prime Ministers, such as John Howard and Tony Abbott, are drawn into the social commentary, the organisational arm of the party and the state divisions are in a complete shambles, hence yet another review.

It defies belief that both Howard and Abbott are not formally consulting on these changes, given that Abbott once did for more root and branch (membership) ownership of the party, resisted successfully by moderates and branch stackers previously. Again, this does not bode well for the Liberal Party, they quite simply, have completely lost their way, surrendering to progressive media and commentators who believe that by becoming more Labor light, like a Teal, is the way forward for future electoral success.

Like all swings and roundabouts, things will change. Future articles will provide some thoughts on what the Liberal Party ought to do. Rebuilding Australia’s prosperity will take time, effort, and a commitment to doing what’s right for the long term. The task ahead won’t be simple, but for the Liberal Party of Australia and its state divisions to return to government, they must first discover who they are, what they stand for, and why they failed Australians, and on the way, find a leader of substance, and fast.

So, in 2028, would you pick the bullet or the noose?