End this ‘mass public therapy session’: Key Liberal’s blunt message to his divided party

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Liberal frontbencher James Paterson has demanded an end to the party’s “mass public therapy session” and warned that a Nigel Farage-style populist turn could destroy the party, sending Opposition Leader Sussan Ley a message to unite the Coalition and set its sights on Labor.

The Victorian opened up a new line of attack on Anthony Albanese, whom he compared to a “petty despot” for his proposed crackdown on freedom of information, slashing of opposition staff numbers, and what Paterson described as the prime minister’s “deeply weird … obsession” with making Labor the natural party of government.

In a blunt and expansive speech at a time when Ley is battling disunity, one of the opposition’s top performers countered the perception that the Liberals must morph into a populist outfit or turn into a “souless” teal-like party that only talked economics and gave up on cultural arguments.

Accepting the progressive agenda on energy, migration and social policy “wouldn’t mean culture wars stop”, Paterson declared at Tuesday night’s Tom Hughes Oration in Sydney.

“If we followed this advice, we would be left with a soulless, hollow party which spoke to only the narrowest material aspirations of Australians,” he said, according to a copy of his speech.

“On the other hand, we are told that our future lies in a Farage-lite, populist conservative party, which abandons our traditions on free markets and fiscal discipline in favour of a new nationalism of picking winners and turning our backs on free trade.”

“What [UK populist party] Reform has so far achieved is the political destruction of the Conservative Party as we know it. A similar movement would have a similar political effect here.”

Paterson’s remarks will be viewed internally as a critique of the anti-free market agenda laid out by rebel MP Andrew Hastie, who savaged Liberal economic orthodoxy last month before resigning from the frontbench.

It also serves as a rebuke to moderates Amanda Vanstone and Arthur Sinodinos, who warned against debating national identity issues even as polls show concern about immigration levels.

“We must seek to understand and incorporate the reasonable concerns of the good-faith actors on the right who today express dissatisfaction with the direction of the Liberal Party,” Paterson said.

“Some conservatives feel aggrieved that the post-Cold War liberal consensus damaged causes they care about. Family. Faith. Nation. Community. Their concerns are sincere. And they are legitimate.”

Australia’s unique system of compulsory and preferential voting meant the Liberal Party would fail to win enough support across the broad spectrum of voters if it tried to appeal to voters in Australia by aping Farage, Paterson argued.

He acknowledged the party could no longer take its volunteer and donor base for granted while Pauline Hanson’s One Nation surges in the polls and activist group Advance hauls in donations, even as Ley attempts to steer the party back to the centre to win back urban seats.

The latest Resolve Political Monitor showed Ley’s performance rating had dropped significantly since July. The poll’s two-party preferred vote remained at 55-45 in Labor’s favour, the same margin as the May election, after weeks of angst in the Coalition over internal leaks and defection of Hastie and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price to the backbench.

Ley’s position is safe for now, but some of her key allies on the right of the party are questioning whether she can last until the budget next year if she fails to develop compelling attacks against the government. Paterson did not mention Ley in his lengthy speech.

Paterson emphasised the party’s urgent task was to “resolve internal differences about our direction amicably”, identify Labor’s failings, and “develop a coherent and compelling alternative policy agenda”.

“An ongoing mass public therapy session doesn’t exactly scream ‘ready for government’. We must do it now at the start of the term so it does not drag on forever. The Liberal Party is not a think tank, or an activist group. Or a debating society,” Paterson said.

“We are a political party designed to win and hold government.

“If you want to understand what the consequences of an entrenched, long-term Labor government looks like, just examine Victoria. Take it from me, it’s not pretty. We have a moral duty to prevent the Victorianisation of Australia.”

Some Liberals have been consoled by a Centre for Independent Studies paper, published last month, that listed historic moments in politics, from Malcolm Fraser’s 1975 win to former US president Bill Clinton’s first election victory, that seemed impossible just years earlier.