Simon Birmingham says modern Liberal party ‘not seen as remotely liberal’
Former finance minister Simon Birmingham has taken to LinkedIn to call out the Liberal party model for being broken.
Birmingham wrote:
It must start with the raison d’être. Why do we have a Liberal Party and how is it relevant in 2025 and beyond?
The broad church model of a party that successfully melds liberal and conservative thinking is clearly broken. The Liberal Party is not seen as remotely liberal and the brand of conservatism projected is clearly perceived as too harsh and out of touch.
Quoting Theresa May to the UK’s Conservative party back in 2002, he wrote: “Our base is too narrow and so, occasionally, are our sympathies. You know what some people call us: the nasty party.”
Australians still seek all of the freedoms that liberalism stands for. Freedoms of belief, worship, family, enterprise and ownership. Indeed, they embrace more freedoms than ever in a society where people enjoy more rights to equality of opportunity and exercise those rights through a wide diversity of social, family and business constructs.
Yet in 2025 the Liberal Party is seen as grudging if not intolerant of the way some exercise those freedoms.
He said the party needed to focus on women and called for the party to embrace gender quotas.
He also called for the new leader to embrace citizen assemblies, reconcile itself on “budget sustainability, climate change and national security”, and embrace modern campaigning.
The Liberal Party has failed to learn lessons from the past and if it fails to do so in the face of this result then its future viability to govern will be questioned.
Key events
What we learned, 4 May 2025
With that we’re wrapping up the blog. Before we go, here are the major stories from Sunday:
Several seats remained on a knife-edge on Sunday with the results in many contests too close to call, but with Labor expected to also make inroads into the federal Senate;
Labor added a new name to its tally of significant scalps with the Nationals deputy leader, Perin Davey, expected to lose her Senate seat on Sunday morning;
Anthony Albanese says he has received a number of texts and calls from world leaders after his election win;
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has described the election result as beyond the party’s “most optimistic expectations”;
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, has lauded federal Labor’s electoral win as “emphatic and historic”;
The Nationals leader David Littleproud, who was re-elected easily, rejected a suggestion that the Coalition’s nuclear policy had anything to do with its defeat;
Recriminations over the Coalition defeat have begun, with SA Liberal senator Alex Antic saying the party should move further to the right;
Liberal moderate NSW senator Andrew Bragg says the Coalition’s road back to relevancy begins with “deeper understanding of modern Australia”;
Labor MP Jeremy Laxale says there is one person to blame for the scale of the Coalition’s loss – Peter Dutton;
Independent MP Zali Steggall said the Liberal party has lost its way and “abandoned the concepts of liberalism”;
Coalition MP Keith Wolahan, who is likely to lose his seat, said releasing policies late in the campaign was a tactical mistake;
Wolahan also said the party will need to “dig deep and think about who we are”;
Independent senator David Pocock says he is “humbled” by the scale of the swing towards him in the ACT;
Environment groups have taken a victory lap framing the Coalition’s crushing electorate defeat as the end of its nuclear ambitions.
The Marine Conservation Society says the Australian government must now do more to protect Australia’s environment.
We’ll pick things up again tomorrow.
On X, the Liberal candidate for Goldstein, Tim Wilson, has shared this image from the American sports comedy-drama Ted Lasso.
With 79.2% of the vote counted, Wilson is currently neck and neck with teal independent Zoe Daniel, who leads by just 97 votes.
Wilson is hoping the postal votes get him over the line.
Sussan Ley pays tribute to Dutton, says new Liberal leader will be chosen once all results are in
The acting Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, has issued a statement saying the party was reflecting on the “results with humility”:
Firstly, I want to thank the many millions of Australians who voted for the Liberal Party (and National Party) and the thousands of volunteers who supported our campaign.
As Acting Leader of the Liberal Party, and deputy leader for the past three years, I want to pay particular tribute to Peter Dutton and thank him for his 25 years of deeply valued service to our country. He has been an outstanding Member of Parliament, senior Cabinet Minister, Leader of our Party and friend. We wish him, Kirilly, Bec, Harry and Tom all the very best for their future.
She said the parties’ thoughts were with the Liberal members who have lost their seats and the 150 candidates who ran across the country.
The Liberal party would meet to elect a leader and deputy leader of the opposition once the full results are in.
Finally, I thank our many dedicated Liberal and National Party members, Australia-wide, for supporting us so well during this campaign and at this time.
Simon Birmingham says modern Liberal party ‘not seen as remotely liberal’
Former finance minister Simon Birmingham has taken to LinkedIn to call out the Liberal party model for being broken.
Birmingham wrote:
It must start with the raison d’être. Why do we have a Liberal Party and how is it relevant in 2025 and beyond?
The broad church model of a party that successfully melds liberal and conservative thinking is clearly broken. The Liberal Party is not seen as remotely liberal and the brand of conservatism projected is clearly perceived as too harsh and out of touch.
Quoting Theresa May to the UK’s Conservative party back in 2002, he wrote: “Our base is too narrow and so, occasionally, are our sympathies. You know what some people call us: the nasty party.”
Australians still seek all of the freedoms that liberalism stands for. Freedoms of belief, worship, family, enterprise and ownership. Indeed, they embrace more freedoms than ever in a society where people enjoy more rights to equality of opportunity and exercise those rights through a wide diversity of social, family and business constructs.
Yet in 2025 the Liberal Party is seen as grudging if not intolerant of the way some exercise those freedoms.
He said the party needed to focus on women and called for the party to embrace gender quotas.
He also called for the new leader to embrace citizen assemblies, reconcile itself on “budget sustainability, climate change and national security”, and embrace modern campaigning.
The Liberal Party has failed to learn lessons from the past and if it fails to do so in the face of this result then its future viability to govern will be questioned.
Liberals Against Nuclear calls on party to axe ‘disastrous’ policy
The group of Liberal supporters who led a campaign against Peter Dutton’s signature energy policy have called on the party to drop the plan in the wake of the massive defeat.
Liberals Against Nuclear spokesperson Andrew Gregson said:
This result sees the Liberals facing a generational wipeout. Only significant and immediate change can chart a pathway back. Dropping the disastrous nuclear policy right now would demonstrate they are prepared to listen, learn and act.
Saturday’s election results are simply the latest and most compelling evidence that the party faithful never signed up for nuclear and would not follow Mr Dutton down this path.
If we continue down this path, we’re not just risking another electoral defeat – we’re risking the very identity of the Liberal Party as founded by Robert Menzies.
Amanda Meade
ABC tops election night TV ratings
The ABC was the most popular destination for election viewing last night, with its top election program (between 8.30pm and 10pm) attracting a national average audience of 2.4 million viewers.
According to official ratings data from OzTAM, the ABC’s broadcast and ABC iview audience dominated prime-time viewing with a free-to-air total TV prime-time share of 48.4%.
Seven News had 580,000 viewers and was the highest rating commercial TV station.
Seven says it was the first network to call the result, declaring prime minister Anthony Albanese the winner at 8.08pm.
Nine News was in third spot with 527,000 viewers.
The ABC News website and app had more than 5.7 million users across the day and almost 500,000 additional users via Apple News.
Labor MP Julian Hill used his Sunday morning to rub a little salt in the Coalition’s wounds.
In a post to social media, Hill highlighted how the Liberal party had secured only 13 of the 37 seats won by the Coalition in the House of Representatives.
The Nats and LNP are doing relatively well.
Barnaby Joyce for Leader of the Opposition?
Joe Hinchliffe
‘Women empowering women’ behind Labor’s success in Queensland, Anika Wells says
Labor’s Anika Wells says gender played a “critical” role in the party securing its historic win at Saturday’s election.
Speaking at a park in the seat of Dickson, which Ali France won from Peter Dutton, alongside seven other newly elected Labor women from the sunshine state – including one senator and six likely to win lower house seats – the minister for sports and member for Lilley says the Albanese government inspired women to join and vote for them.
It is such a powerful picture that you see here. Not just that we chose to preselect women, but these women represent their communities.
Wells says young women like Emma Comer, the candidate for Petrie, saw themselves represented in what was the first ever majority women government and the first ever 50-50 male-female cabinet.
She saw herself in that, she saw the possibilities for someone like herself in that and she put herself forward in a situation that she may have never done before.
Women, empowering women. Women legislating for women. Women working for women. This is the result.
Along with France, Comer and Wells is Brisbane’s Madonna Jarrett, Bonner’s Kara Cook, Moreton’s Julie-Ann Campbell, Griffith’s Renee Coffey and senator Corinne Mulholland.
Zoe Daniel walks back claim of victory in Goldstein
Independent candidate Zoe Daniel is sounding a note of caution on Sunday after claiming victory in the seat of Goldstein on Saturday night.
In a post to social media, Daniel said it would be some days before the final count will be known.
The result in Goldstein is obviously close and it will be some days before the result is confirmed.
I again thank the voters of Goldstein for their support as well as the many volunteers who worked tirelessly on my campaign.
This electoral race is personal for her opponent, Tim Wilson, who was quoted by The Age on Saturday night as saying he believed he would get over the line on postal votes which were being returned in his favour at a rate of two to one.
He said:
Daniel is welcome to claim whatever she wants – it is the voters that will decide the result.
It’ll be tight. The whole nation went in one direction. We went in the other direction. I’m pretty proud of that. Succour if I fail, but I genuinely think I’ll get there.
Independents ‘can’t be ignored’ in coming parliament, Gee says
Gee says the strong swing the independents received showed “people have had a gutful of the spin”.
In the end there was just so much major party advertising from the Nationals. It was just an avalanche. And I think in a cost of living crisis, people were seeing those massive amounts of money being spent on TV, on signage, everything. And I think a lot of people in the end thought this is just obscene.
And they were just seeing the same old soundbites coming in. And it wasn’t real and genuine community connection at the end of the day. And so I think that made the difference. I think we ran a very grassroots campaign. We ran it on the smell of an oily rag.
And I think that people could see in communities around our region that we were genuinely trying to offer alternative policies and actually help people and make life better for the people that we represent.
Gee said he did not believe the Labor majority would dilute the power of the crossbench and that, in fact, he expected a “very dynamic crossbench”.
I think the fact that the independents have been returned with such decisive results, I think adds weight to the voices that we bring to the parliament, because we’ve shown that we can stand up to the mightiest of machines and that we can defeat them, and that we will not be ignored and we can’t be ignored.
Former Nationals MP predicts party will have leadership challenge soon
Andrew Gee says the failure by the Coalition to provide any real details of its nuclear plan, particularly in communities like Lithgow where it wanted to build them, contributed to their defeat as it left people guessing whether it was “fact or fiction”.
For example, the Coalition didn’t tell the people of Lithgow that they were actually planning to store the nuclear waste in Lithgow. They totally ignored that.
And then when I actually got that information out of it, they started saying, ‘oh, well, you can store it in Coke cans,’ and all this sort of stuff like little, little canisters, like Coke cans. It was all very strange. There was never any detail across it, and people were just in the end, thinking, is this a real policy or is it not a real policy?
Like the Libs, the National party will be expected to have a leadership challenge.
Make no mistake. The spin will be all, ‘yes, the National party had a good campaign and everything’s hunky dory, And aren’t the Liberals hopeless?’
But the reality is the challenge will be on if the numbers are there. Mark my words. I’ve seen this movie many times before.
