Cory on the Move

John Weber
Aug 24, 2017 · 4 min read

A few months ago I wrote that Cory Bernardi was on a one way trip to electoral oblivion, but this no longer seems the case. What I and others overlooked was Bernardi’s skills as a backroom organiser, and his unique bargaining position. Since defecting from the Liberal Party, the Australian Conservatives have absorbed the Family First Party, including two of it’s South Australian MLCs. Family First was Australia’s natural home for Christian Conservatives, so Bernardi’s alignment will provide the Australian Conservatives with a pre-established base along with experienced operators and valuable campaign data. Whilst this merger has been covered extensively by the media, the Conservatives recruitment of anti-Islamic activists Kirralie Smith and Bernard Gaynor has received much less coverage, however these new recruits are prized additions to Bernardi’s movement, and will have both One Nation and the Liberal Party worried.

Smith and Gaynor were originally with the Geert Welders backed Australian Liberty Alliance, a minor anti-Islam party which received over 100,000 senate votes in the 2016 election, including around 30,000 in NSW for Kirralie Smith, and another 30,000 for Bernard Gaynor in QLD. Whilst neither are exactly house hold names, in the mirky and tight-knit world of ant-Islam campaigners and far right activists, Smith and Gaynor are big fish. Kirralie Smith has been a contributor to the Bolt Report and has a Facebook following of nearly 40,000. Bernard Gaynor, a former army major who was sacked for making homophobic comments, has a following of 20,000. Both of these candidates will be able to tap in to the Paulin Hanson votes whilst still being socially acceptable to older, more conservative, and disillusioned Liberal Party voters, the “Tony Abbott Liberals” if you will. One would assume that Kirralie Smith would be more electable to the Senate, then that of current NSW One Nation Senator Brian Burston.

Whilst gathering the independent anti-Islam vote, Bernardi has been busy building an impressive Christian machine, with roots in every state, and in a perverse way the Liberal Party is helping him do it. The Government’s Senate voting reforms have encouraged like minded minor parties to merge, because under the new system if they are on their own their vote is likely to exhaust (Anthony Greene explains here). With the loss of Bob Day, Family First were unlikely to be able to compete with a reemergent One Nation, a merger with the Australian Conservatives was their best bet at survival. In NSW, Greg Bondar, Federal Director of the Christian Democratic Party (Fred Niles Group), called for a merger of all “Christian’ based parties in Australia with a view to forming a Coalition of Christian Parties ideally under the CDP banner” naming Bernardi’s Conservatives specifically, this shows that the CDP understands the importance or merging, and leaves the door wide open for a possible amalgamation with Bernardi’s Conservatives. Crikey recently reported that Bernardi has also met with the Australian Christians Party, the West Australian and Victorian splitters from the Fred Niles CDP, to discuss a Family First style merger. In Victoria, Bernardi has managed to recruit the last remains of the DLP in Upper House Member Rachel Carling-Jenkins. If Bernardi manages to scoop up the CDP, Christians, DLP along with the ALA, he will inherit potentially thousands of new members, donors and activists, all working together for the first time.

Bernardi’s crusade couldn’t happen at a worse time for the LNP. The NSW Liberal branch hangs on the brink of civil war, and the Victorian branch is struggling to keep the lights on. With membership in free fall, factional warlords are busy trying to recruit evangelical-stacks, but if the Liberal Party can’t deliver results on same sex marriage or abortion, what’s to stop the recruits moving to over Bernardi’s Conservatives? The defections from the Liberal Party have begun, with former federal WA MP Denis Jensen joining the Conservatives, and the Roseville Branch of the Liberal Party formally inviting Bernardi to come and spruik his new venture at a branch meeting. To achieve his goal of uniting the disillusioned under one all encompassing banner, Bernardi will have to compete not only with the reemergent of One Nation, but also the rise of the libertarian LDP and the populist Hunters Fishers & Farmers.

Bernardi has tests ahead, first the SA state election, followed by the Victorian election shortly after. But Bernardi has a unique bargaining position over the Liberals, which gives the Conservatives a significant electoral advantage. Bernardi unlike the Liberals has the ability to negotiate and trade preferences openly with One Nation, whereas the mainstream Liberal base will desert the Liberal Party in droves if it seen to be placating the likes of Hanson, as they did in WA. Bernardi, unlike Turnbull or Marshall, doesn’t need the mainstream middle class vote, he wishes to occupy the hardcore ten percent of Australia’s right, much like the Greens occupy the ten percent progressive vote on the fringes of the ALP. Bernardi’s new Conservative machine appears to be ready and waiting to catch the 9% One Nation vote when the wheels inevitably come off the Hanson clown car.

The Conservatives are currently polling at just 3% in SA, which means Robert Brockenshire, the only Conservative MLC up for re-election should be safe. If Bernardi can organise preferences well with One Nation (currently polling at 6%), the LDP, Hunters, CDP and Liberal Party, there is every chance preferences will see the Conservatives pick up another seat, giving them a total of three elected members in the upper house. In the tight South Australian parliament, three members could be enough to hold the balance of power, making Bernardi king in the conservative capital.

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John Weber

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Law student, true believer, Richmond tragic, annoyingly political

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