Millions of Australians are abandoning the federal coalition as the Liberals continue to review its election drubbing and rebuild a fractured party.

More than half of voters who previously voted for the coalition, approximately five million people, wouldn’t consider voting for them if a federal election were held now, according to think tank Blueprint Institute.

More than two-thirds of people said they wouldn’t consider giving their first preference to the coalition, which included 44 per cent of former coalition voters, according to the commissioned YouGov poll of 5000 people in July.

“If the coalition is to regain government through an improvement in the primary vote, it will need to do more than appeal to its base or convince undecided voters,” the Blueprint Institute’s report, Winning Back the Coalition’s Missing Middle, found. 

“It must expand the number of people who are willing to consider its candidates as an option.”

Half of those who  had voted for the coalition but not at the 2025 election were critical of climate change, renewable energy and housing affordability policy offerings.

Only 16 per cent of former supporters believed the conservative alliance was serious about addressing climate change.

The research presented more dire news, finding that there was an “extremely limited opportunity to increase its primary vote among those who would currently consider voting for one of its candidates”.

Four in five ex-coalition voters and just over 70 per cent of independent voters agreed the Liberals and Nationals needed a more comprehensive policy suite before they stood a chance to pick up their vote.

Climate change policies were identified as a key area to address a disconnect with voters, as more than half of ex-voters wanted them to keep their commitment to a net-zero emissions target.

The Liberals and Nationals are split on the net-zero by 2050 target, with more conservative and firebrand members wanting the commitment scrapped.

But inner city and moderate Liberals who have called for stronger climate action policies have been largely eradicated from metropolitan areas across the country.

The coalition fared well on economic management, national security and foreign affairs, which overlapped with the priorities of their former supporters.

Those who left the conservative parties were predominantly parents with young children and full-time workers in their twenties to forties, the survey found.

Blueprint Institute co-founder Lachlan Crombie said the coalition would need to gain a broad appeal to voters rather than just a narrow sliver.

“That means appealing to young families who are not particularly ideological, but have turned away from the coalition because it’s drifted away from representing the values of modern Australia,” he said.

That some of the groups seeking to make as much political hay out of the anti-immigration sentiment as possible are – brace yourself – contradicting some of their previous held positions! I. Know. Smash me down and call me avocado – but there are hypocrites among us.

Among those, are the IPA which recently made Media Watch for its use of overseas arrivals and departures (people coming and leaving on planes) and conflated that with overseas migration statistics (different data, and measurement, which the ABS had to make clear after the IPA attributed its OAD numbers to migration)

Matt Grudnoff had a look at some of the actual numbers here:

But let’s take a look at history – including this 2008 IPA report, which SHOCKINGLY reveals the history of Australia’s political parties on migration:

Two of the most fundamental liberal freedoms are the free movement of people and goods across
borders. In Australian politics, individuals
of liberal persuasion have always struggled
to find one side of politics that has reliably
supported both increased immigration and
lower tariffs at the same time.

However, our 
two major political parties have had such a 
remarkably consistent record that one can
confidently say: 
immigration will always be higher under a Liberal government and;
 tariffs will always be lower under a Labor government.


This may seem counter-intuitive, but the
lesson of history is clear. When it comes
 to the movement of people and goods the
 Liberal Party is the party of social liberalism and the Labor Party is the party of eco
nomic liberalism.

Of course there have been 
exceptions—most notably the post-war migration expansion commenced under the 
Chifley Labor government, but this was
 certainly an exception to the general rule.

And what else did the IPA know to be true in 2008?

The Howard government, like all its Liberal predecessors, was a high immigration government, particularly in its latter years, topping 140,000 [permanent migrants] in its final full year 2006-07.

It was under John Howard that, for the first time since federation, the overseas-born proportion of the population exceeded 24 per cent, and it was also under Howard that the non-European component of the overseas born went above 50 per cent for the first time.

And as well as increasing overall numbers, the Howard government progressively increased the refugee intake from 3,802 in 1999-2000 to 6,022 in 2005-06.”

Fancy. That.

Penny Wong has announced new diplomatic missions:

I am pleased to confirm the following appointments:

• Mr Tim Kane as Australia’s next High Commissioner to Pakistan (He was the former ambassador to Brazil)
• Dr Helen Cheney as Australia’s next Ambassador to Portugal (former high commissioner to Nauru)
• Ms Greta Whyte as Australia’s next Consul-General in French Polynesia (formerly acting in the position)

Australia’s diplomatic network enables us to promote our interests in peace, security, trade, investment and other areas of cooperation.

Australia takes the world as it is and seeks to shape it for the better – these diplomatic appointments will deepen Australia’s connections abroad and increase our ability to influence where it matters.

I thank the outgoing High Commissioner, Ambassador, and Consul-General for their important contributions.

After a chilly winter, Australians are about to be hit with their winter heating bills. New analysis by The Australia Institute has found that a bit of red tape might have kept us warmer and kept our power bills down.

Red tape is often blamed for the housing crisis, like at the recent Economic Reform Roundtable, which vowed to reduce regulation in housing construction.

In 2005, the Productivity Commission warned about over-regulating energy efficiency in housing. Two decades on, Australian homes are built to a much lower energy efficiency standard than overseas, despite our more extreme climate.

The new analysis finds that poor regulation leads to poor outcomes, such as forcing families to shiver through winter in poorly insulated homes and pay higher heating bills. 

The analysis also suggests the removal of lucrative tax concessions for property investors, which gives them a huge advantage over first-home buyers, and recommends that governments directly build more homes for Australians. 

“Regulatory reform is not inherently bad. Regulations are simply laws. They can be good. They can be bad,” said Jack Thrower, Senior Economist at The Australia Institute and author of the analysis.

“A well-resourced planning agency, capable of making swift, well-considered decisions, would likely help get things built more speedily.

“But ‘cutting red tape’ is too often code for watering down laws which keep Australians safe from businesses abusing their power. Indeed, there are parts of the housing industry where the problem is not too much regulation; it’s not enough.

“Instead of blaming regulations for the housing crisis, the government could look to tax concessions for property investors, which cost over $10 billion a year, make inequality worse, and help landlords outbid first-home buyers.

“The government could tackle the housing crisis by cracking down on these giveaways and directly building any additional housing Australia might need, all while regulating to make sure properties are energy efficient, safe, and durable.”

Ebony Bennett wrote this for the Canberra Times:

A “March for Australia” rally sounds benign, but people who plan to attend the “March for Australia” rallies around the country on Sunday will almost certainly be marching alongside white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

The march is advertised as being about ending mass immigration. Of course, there is no “correct” level of immigration to Australia – this will always be a democratic question that’s up for debate. But it’s equally clear that’s not what these protests are really about.

The media and anti-fascism activists have revealed that some of the organisers of the marches have posted white nationalist ideas like “remigration”, including pro-Nazi and pro-Hitler memes, and threatened violence. March for Australia has denied links to some prominent neo-Nazis.

While Australians firmly rejected the Coalition’s harsh anti-immigration rhetoric and policies under Peter Dutton’s leadership, scapegoating immigrants is a sadly effective tactic in politics and in the media.

More than one politician has voiced support for the March for Australia, including independent MP Bob Katter, who threatened to punch a journalist for mentioning his Lebanese heritage when questioning him about his support for the anti-immigration rallies.

These marches can be seen as part of a pattern of neo-Nazis and fascists becoming more and more emboldened in Australia and overseas, using anti-immigrant sentiment to bring heinous and extremist ideas like the mass deportation of non-white people into the mainstream.

The hateful, white supremacist language, the calls for violence, and talk of mass deportation Australians make it clear the March for Australia has a much more sinister agenda at its heart, and we only need look to the United States to see where this path leads.

It’s just eight years ago that neo-Nazis marched through Charlottesville in the United States with torches chanting “Jews will not replace us”, and where one white supremacist killed a counter-protestor by driving his car into a crowd of people.

President Donald Trump, then in his first term, responded by saying there were “very fine people on both sides“.

Now, Trump is using his second term to deploy masked secret police to disappear people from their homes, workplaces, schools and courthouses to deport people en masse without due process. There’s no doubt the far right is trying to take Australia down a similar path.

It was just a few years ago, ABC Background briefing uncovered a covert plot by Australia’s far-right movement to join major political parties to influence them from within, including a branch-stacking effort that saw dozens of alleged neo-Nazis and white supremacists join the Young Nationals in NSW.

Neo-Nazis felt comfortable enough to publicly boo the welcome to country at this year’s ANZAC Day dawn service.

They have marched through the streets of regional towns in Victoria and NSW, and down the CBD of Melbourne in masks at midnight, assaulting a counter-protestor.

After the Melbourne march, the neo-Nazi group NSN boasted a surge in membership, meaning it was on track to overtake the Liberal Party membership within 18 months.

And of course, we cannot forget it is just six years since an Australian white supremacist massacred 51 people and injured 80 others during Friday prayers at mosques in Christchurch.

Australia never bothered with much public introspection into how it produced this terrorist.

You can read the rest here.

Meanwhile the NT Country Liberal government has announced it has approved two projects to “unlock” the Beetaloo gas field. This will do nothing to expand the NT’s economy, but will increase emissions. So Huzzah. What a celebration.

From the release:

Work begins this month on the Territory’s first-ever Beetaloo pipeline, with APA Group investing $70 million to deliver the 37-kilometre Sturt Plateau Pipeline. The pipeline will connect Tambor Resources’ Shenandoah South Project to the Amadeus Gas Pipeline – the backbone of the Territory’s gas network stretching from Alice Springs to Darwin.

Separately, Tamboran has secured approval from Traditional Owners, the Northern Land Council and the NT Government to recover appraisal gas for sale from Exploration Permit 98 under the Petroleum Act 1984 (NT), paving the way for construction of the $140 million Sturt Plateau Compression Facility.

Together, these projects establish the first clear pathway to market for Beetaloo gas – unlocking royalties, powering Territory homes and businesses, and cementing the NT’s place as an energy powerhouse.

Not sure how many more times we have to see that the ‘positives’ never actually come off until we learn our lesson, but this is Australia and we just love giving gas away and pretending there is nothing we can actually do about it.

Well this did give me a tickle. After not winning the battle since 2019, Hume is now appealing to her colleagues – the leftover, Leftovers – who are all fighting to scrap net zero – to be sensible.
When has that happened? She does admit that without net zero, there will be no return to the government benches.

Just wait until they start having to face ‘real zero’.

Q: State Liberal parties are voting against net zero. A huge number of your colleagues are campaigning internally and also even publicly against net zero as well. Does that make any sense to you?

Jane Hume:

Do you know what Liberal Party members really want? Liberal Party members really want to return to government. They want to make sure that we have a sensible, fiscally responsible Liberal government in charge.

Q: Can you return to the government benches, if you don’t adopt net zero?

Hume:

That’s exactly right. The way to get there is that we reflect what a modern Australia wants. And a modern Australia have told us they want a zero-emissions future. The way to get there is through a sensible energy policy, a transparent energy policy – not one that’s based on ideology, but one that’s based on economic sense.

Why does Jane Hume, who previously went along with whatever her party leader said and defended it, despite the Liberals priding themselves on being able to cross the floor and speak in support of their own convictions rather than the party position, now think that the Coalition should embrace net zero and the energy transition?

Well, there’s a few reasons. The most obvious is an electoral imperative.

For election after election, the voters have told us that they want to see a low-emissions future.

So I think that that ship really has sailed. When we build our policy platform, it’s going to be fundamental that Liberals don’t just work for the voters that put us here now, but for the 33 seats that we need to win in order to form government. They have made it very clear that they want to see a low-emissions future. But the other is economic.

This is really important. We are a capital-dependent nation. We need capital inflows from overseas. We know that overseas financiers require policy certainty. That policy certainty can come from a commitment to a net zero future. Net zero is 25 years away. I have absolutely no doubt that the technology will be there to be able to deliver a zero-emissions future.

This is something that we should be embracing. We know that, when other countries have uncertain policy settings – like we’ve seen in the US – that capital moves. Over $1 billion was invested from a Dutch pension fund into Octopus Investments, an oasis fund, an Australian renewable energy fund, weeks ago, in response largely to the uncertain policy settings occurring in the US right now. This is a great opportunity for us to attract private-sector capital so that we can start lifting the subsidies that taxpayers are paying for.

Liberal senator Jane Hume, who was part of the Dutton Coalition who opposed Australia hosting the UN climate conference COP, and said they would withdraw if elected as government, is now arguing her party SHOULD support the conference. The Coalition (and the Liberal party) are tearing themselves apart over net zero. Hume has found herself on the moderate side and having been booted off the front bench, is now freelancing on behalf of the moderates pushing for the Coalition to embrace a low emissions future. Which maybe would mean more, if she wasn’t the person the Dutton Coalition rolled out to be ‘sensible’ in opposing these sorts of things, less than one year ago.

Hume now tells the ABC:

I think this is low-hanging fruit. Let’s face it – COP, while it does bringing in world leaders to make some pretty serious decisions about a low-emissions future – most importantly, it’s a giant trade fair.

It’s a trade fair that attracts financiers, tech companies, energy companies from right around the world to show off their wares, and it allows innovators in Australia to do the same. That’s really important economically for a country like Australia.

Why wouldn’t we want the world’s financiers to come to Australia? We’re a capital-inflow-dependent nation. Why wouldn’t we want those companies that, for instance, are setting up nuclear power generation right around the world to show off their wares here in Australia and, more importantly, in South Australia, where there’s a $1.5 billion nuclear export industry ready and waiting?

Why wouldn’t we want an opportunity to show off our critical minerals capabilities to the world? This is a great opportunity for Australia. It’s something that we should be wholeheartedly embracing.

Because, let’s face it – the world has moved on. They want a low-emissions future. It’s time that the Liberal Party gets behind COP so that we can talk about it in a sensible way, rather than the reckless way that Labor is going about its Renewable Energy Targets, which clearly it’s going to fail to deliver.

David Pocock said he is frustrated there is no population plan for Australia (there isn’t – there is no thought given to what size Australia’s population should be as a cohesive plan, which means infrastructure doesn’t keep pace, which is not the fault of migrants, but of successive governments)

Pocock:

We saw a catch-up over COVID. My concern is that there really isn’t a plan. We’re not taking into account the required infrastructure, things like impacts on the environment, and when you don’t have a plan, you open yourselves up to the kind of things we saw on the weekend. So I would love to see a sensible conversation about it. And for the government – rather than Treasury just setting some sort of arbitrary number every year – to actually say, “OK, THIS is how valuable migrants are to this country. These are the skill areas that we need. This is how we’re going to do it over time. This is how we’re going to ensure that we’re building enough housing, schools, other infrastructure that is required for a growing population.”