Why Perrottet should be persuaded to stay on as opposition leader

NSW election 2023

The result of Saturday’s election is an alarm bell for reform within the Liberal Party. The deafening state defeat adds to the structural challenges federal Liberals face after the downfall of the Morrison government in May 2022.

Yet, in stark contrast to the party position that prevailed after Scott Morrison, this time no one will be blaming the leader. Dominic Perrottet could not have done more with the hand he was dealt; that is: Leading the Liberal Party in Australia’s biggest state after Morrison had sullied its appeal to women and the young, entrenched factional hatreds and flattened the morale of its members. The Morrison legacy was too burdensome to shake off.

Dominic Perrottet announced he would be stepping down as state Liberal leader. Credit:James Brickwood

The final term of the federal Coalition government was full of cheap PR and desperate marketeering. By contrast, the state Liberal government had a record of substance. It didn’t drag its feet on climate change but was one of the first jurisdictions in the world to commit to net zero emissions by 2050. It boldly privatised ports and toll roads, freeing up funds to be invested in metros, roads and light rail.

If the Kids Future Fund got a disappointing reception, with only 43 per cent of voters in support, Perrottet cannot be blamed. His nervous colleagues were desperate for a big, bold initiative. Why? Because they had to lift themselves out of the Morrison mess.

The Liberal Party set up an enquiry into the 2022 result. It confirmed Morrison’s divisive agenda lost support among young, women, and Chinese-background voters.

Perrottet should be persuaded by colleagues to stay on as leader. His result was creditable. The idea that all defeats are shameful, and mandate retirement, would have terminated the careers of Winston Churchill and Robert Menzies, let alone the British 19th-century titans, Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone.

Chris Minns’ new government would fear someone with the experience and name recognition of the outgoing premier as leader of the opposition. The first priority is to haul the party beyond the destructive factionalism that only two months ago left it without candidates in 36 seats.

The party must appoint a committee to identify, interrogate and mentor high-profile candidates for marginal seats. This was recommended by the review into the federal loss. And the candidate list must have a decisive weighting of women. My proposal is straightforward: The party must recruit John Howard and Nick Greiner to force agreement on initiatives to limit factional madness. Unless this happens, the bitterness will worsen.

The party needs to re-engage with Chinese-background voters, particularly in key marginal electorates like Ryde, Parramatta and Oatley. It’s worth noting that Chris Minns used WeChat more than any other state politician in this election campaign. Lost by Morrison, the shift in allegiance of this ethnic community was enough to deliver Albanese his floor majority. They can be won back with a new agenda of enterprise and education.

The party needs a think tank with a focus on state rather than national policy. It needs to recruit researchers with the knowledge of state finances to equip our party with fiscally conservative reforms that don’t threaten basic services. All governments in Australia – Victoria and Queensland being the worst offenders – have allowed debt to blow out. The cycle will turn against the era of big spending piling up billions in state debt.

“The party must recruit John Howard to force agreement on initiatives to limit factional madness.”Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Our schools have got to do better against the competition provided by Finland, Singapore and Shanghai. And not just by splashing money. We’ve done plenty of that. This Sydney-based think tank – let’s call it the Howard Institute – will have the task of making the state Liberals the source of quality policy more than seven-second grabs.

We should invest our next leader with full support. Nick Greiner told me that as state opposition leader, he reminded his team there were two rules. One, the leader is always right. Two, if the leader stuffs up refer to rule one. In other words, in opposition, Liberals have got to close ranks and not descend into gossip, score-settling and leadership speculation.

Whoever leads the Liberal Party should read Marilyn Dodkin’s biography of Bob Carr, The Reluctant Leader. Rich reading for any political tragic, and a favourite among Young Liberals, it’s loaded with quotes from Carr’s diaries. They tell how a party broken by defeat in 1988 was put together again by a cunning, funny, energetic leader. Thanks to Perrottet’s performance, our next leader has much less ground to make up and a real chance of making Chris Minns, nice guy though he is, a one-term premier.

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