Thursday 31 August 2017

Matters don't seem to have markedly improved for the Liberal Party since February 2015



Full February 2015 six-page Higginson letter here.

Just on seven months later the disunity within the Liberal Party came to a head with the sacking of then Prime Minister Tony Abbott and the installation of Malcolm Bligh Turnbull.

On 2 July 2016 the first double dissolution federal election in 30 years was held and, although the Liberal-Nationals Coalition was returned to government it was with a reduced majority after the loss of 14 seats.

In August 2016 ABC News reported that:

The New South Wales division of the Liberal Party took out two multi-million-dollar loans with Westpac in little over a year as it struggled with deep financial problems in the lead-up to the federal election campaign.
Internal documents sighted by Four Corners reveal that the embattled Liberal Party division took out the first $7 million loan with Westpac prior to the NSW state election in March 2015, secured against anticipated public funding from the NSW Electoral Commission (NSWEC).

While current Australian Prime Minister and multimillionaire Malcolm Turnbull was forced to personally donate $1.75 million to the federal Liberal Party during the 2016 federal election campaign to ease its financial distress.

In 2017 factional divisions within the Liberal Party remain on public display:


On 21 August 2017 the Federal Coalition recorded its 18th consecutive poor Newspoll result which would have seen it lose government if a general election had been held on that day.

Four days later the Australian Electoral Commission announced that an additional 90,000 Australians have registered to vote since 8 August 2017 – increasing the number of registered voters to 16 million and making the current Commonwealth Electoral Roll the largest since Federation. When age demographics are broken down, 65,000 of these new voters are young people between 18 and 24 years of age. An age group thought to favour the Australian Labor Party and The Greens.

Sometime between 4 August 2018 and 18 May 2019 the Turnbull Government with its slim one MP majority is obliged to go to a general election.

The optics are not looking good.        

No comments: